Thumbs Up

I probably don't need to travel to the Getty to see this retrospective of the much-maligned French painter Gerome: His "Pollice Verso," or "Thumbs Down," is in the permanent collection at the Phoenix Art Museum, which means that I grew up with it. His others ("Pygmalion," "Masquerade") may be numbingly familiar posters, but it's the brownishly bloody gladiator scene above that I have as a postcard over my desk. (I didn't spring for this, though.)