Jean Leon Gerome's painting "Duel after the Masquerade" is of impressive drama. Nestled in a wintry morning mood, the man struck deadly by the stab of a dagger falls to the ground on the left side of the picture. Like the other duellants he is dressed in a costume. Notably, his robe is white, while his downcast friend and the departing men are wearing colorful clothes. Red, only the blood flows from the wound on his right breast. It stains the pure white robe flowing in many folds around his body.

Like a Christ taken from the cross, the prostrate man hangs his three faithful companions in his arms. The observer sees the observer only from the side, or from the back. But these two men have already moved away from the scene. With a bowed head, the victorious man walks away, his guilty conscience is palpable. Remarkably, Gerome knows how to lay the sword and a brown robe between these two groups. The diagonally set into the picture line indicates: A limit has been crossed, there is no turning back from death to life!

How does the painter use nature in this painting? The duel took place in a clearing in a forest. Left and right in the background, the forest spreads. A path leads into the distance, leading to the sky. But: This nature has nothing comforting. She is gray, cold, bald and dismissive. Like dumb witnesses, the strong trees behind the fallen stretch their branches into the sky. In contrast, the trees on the right side appear weak and shadowy. Grief dominates the scene, which was marked only a few minutes before by the fight for life and death.

The painting is thought-provoking. The costumes reveal that before the fateful encounter of the two men a lavish costume party must have taken place. Obviously an invisible woman played the main role. Faith and rigid convention have then led to this end, the death minute artistically perfectly recorded.

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The Duel After the Masquerade by Jean Leon Gerome. Available as an art print on canvas, photo paper, watercolor board, natural paper, or Japanese paper.
winter · aide · snow · danger · assistance · enemies · friendship · trouble · fight · fencing