Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/220

Rh resulted in a final renunciation of every worldly enjoyment. This conversion, which took place in 1374, appears to have been due partly to the effects of a dangerous illness, and partly to the influence of the learned and pious prior of the Carthusian monastery at Munnikhuizen near Arnheim, who had seriously remonstrated with him on the vanity of his life. During the next five years he devoted a considerable portion of his time to repeated and prolonged visits to the monastery of the Augustinian canons regular at Viridis Vallis (Groenendael near Brussels), whose prior, Johann Ruysbroeck, a man of deep though somewhat mystical piety and of considerable literary power, could not fail to impress those who came in contact with him, and many of whose special views are unmistakably reproduced in the writings of Groot and his &quot;fratres devoti.&quot; Between 1374 and 1379 Gerhard had also spent some three years in all at Munnikhuizen in study and prayer; and in the course of the last-mentioned year he left the privacy of the cloister, and having received ordination as a deacon, became a missionary preacher within the diocsse of Utrecht. The success which followed his labours, not only in the town of Utrecht itself, but also in Zwolle, Kampen, Leyden, Delft, Gouda, Amsterdam, aud many other places, was immense ; according to Thomas a Kempis, the people left their busi ness and their meals to hear his sermons, so that the churches could not hold the crowds that flocked wherever he came. The impartiality of the censures, however, which lie directed, not only against the prevailing sins of the laity, but also against the heresy, simony, avarice, and impurity of the secular and regular clergy, soon provoked the un compromising hostility of the entire body of the latter; and accusations of heterodoxy speedily began to be brought against him. It was in vain that Groot emitted a Pullica Protestatio, in which he declared that Jesus Christ was the great subject of his discourses, that in all of them he believed himself to be in harmony with the Catholic doctrine, and that he willingly subjected them to the candid judgment of the Roman Church. By a skilfully framed episcopal edict of 1383, which excluded from the pulpit all who had not received priest s orders, his public preaching was brought abruptly to an end ; an appeal to Urban VI. was made in vain. Compelled thus to search for some other field of usefulness, Groot, in conjunction with his friend Florentius, a canon of Utrecht, began to superintend the labours of certain young men who employed themselves in transcribing manuscripts of church fathers and other authors ; from time to time as they met to receive payment for their work, he sought to edify them with religious exhortation. Ultimately the idea suggested itself that the little band might throw their earnings into a common fund and live together according to a fixed rule. The house of Florentius forth with became a cloister of &quot;fratres vitse communis,&quot; who were speedily joined by many new members, both clerical and lay, practised in a considerable variety of handicrafts ; the general rule of the Augustinian order was adopted ; it was also agreed that their daily bread should be shared in common, and that it should be earned, not begged. Groot s private estate sufficed for the establishment on like principles of a sisterhood who supported themselves by spinning, weaving, and needlework. After a com paratively brief life of singular energy, patience, and self- denial, Groot fell a victim to the plague at Deventer on the 20th of August 1384. Within fifty years of his death the &quot; Brethren of the Common Life,&quot; also called &quot; Fratres bonae voluntatis&quot; or &quot;Fratres Collationarii, &quot; numbered seventeen collegiate churches in the Netherlands, and con tributed somewhat extensively to theological literature. Thomas a Kempis, who wrote a Vita Gerhardi Magni, was trained under Gerhard himself at Deventer. The crder disappeared at the time of the Reformation.

 GROS, (1771-1835), the pupil of David and the forerunner of Ge ricault, occupies a peculiar position between the classic and romantic schools which divided opinion at the beginning of the present century. He was born at Paris in 1771. His father, who was a miniature painter, began seriously to teach him to draw at the early age of six, and showed himself from the first an exacting master. Towards the close of 1785 Gros, by his own choice, entered the studio of David, which he frequented assiduously, continuing at the same time to follow the classes of the College Mazarin. The death of his father, whose circumstances had been embarrassed by the Revolution, threw Gros, in 1791, upon his own resources. He now devoted himself wholly to his profession, and competed in 1792 for the grand prix, but unsuccessfully. About this time ho was, however, on the recommendation of the lilcole des Beaux Arts, employed on the execution of portraits of the members of the Convention, and when disturbed by the development of the Revolution Gros in 1793 left France for Italy, he supported himself at Genoa by the same means, producing a great quantity of miniatures and fixes. He visited Florence, but returning to Genoa made the acquaintance of Josephine, and followed her to Milan, where he was well received by her husband. On November 15, 1796, Gros was present with the army near Arcola when Bonaparte planted the tricolor on the bridge. Gros seized on this incident, and showed by his treatment of it that he had found his vocation. Bonaparte at once gave him the post of &quot;inspecteur aux revues,&quot; which en abled him to follow the army, and in 1797 nominated him on the commission charged to select the spoils which should enrich the Louvre. In 1799, having escaped from the besieged city of Genoa, Gros made his way to Paris, and in the beginning of 1801 took up his quarters in the Capucins. His &quot; esquisse &quot; (Mus6e de Nantes) of the Battle of Nazareth gained the prize offered in 1802 by the consuls, but was not carried out, owing it is said to the jealousy of Junot felt by Napoleon ; but he indemnified Gros by commissioning him to paint his own visit to the pest-house of Jafla. Les Pestife re s de Jaffa (Louvre) was followed by the Battle of Aboukir 1806 (Versailles), and the Battle of Eylau, 1808 (Louvre). These three subjects the popular leader facing the pestilence unmoved, challenging the splendid instant of victory, heart-sick with the bitter cost of a hard-won field gave to Gros his chief titles to fame. As long as the military element remained bound up with French national life, Gros received from it a fresh and energetic inspiration which carried him to the very heart of the events which he depicted; but as the army and its general separated from the people, Gros, called on to illustrate episodes representative only of the fulfilment of personal ambition, ceased to find the nourishment necessary to his genius, and the defect of his artistic position became evident. Trained in the sect of the Classicists, he was shackled by their rules, even when by his naturalistic treatment of types, and appeal to picturesque effect in colour and tone he seemed to run counter to them. In 1810 his Madrid and Napoleon at the Pyramids (Versailles) show that his star had deserted him. His Francis I. and Charles V., 1812 (Louvre), had considerable success; but the decoration of the dome of St Genevieve (begun in 1811 and completed in 1824) is the only work of Gros's later years which 