GUSTAVE MOREAU: BIOGRAPHY, WORKS - BIOGRAPHIES - 2024

Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) was a painter of French origin famous for his symbolist works, which revolved around themes that had to do with mythology and religion. He emphasized many of his works on eroticism and highlighted the decorative elements of the scenes that he portrayed thanks to the fillings. In addition, he experimented in his work with the use of bright and striking colors.

On some occasion he declared that he had a great interest in human feelings and tried to transfer these concerns to his works. Human passions intrigued and motivated him.

Gustave Moreau. Source: Gustave Moreau, via Wikimedia Commons.

His works were heavily influenced by ideas of the Italian Renaissance and the exotic. He was inspired many times by other artists of the Symbolist movements, but also by writers of the time. Most of his works can be found in the Gustave Moreau museum in Paris.

Biography

Childhood

Moreau was born on April 6, 1826 in Paris, France. His father, Louis Jean Marie Moreau, was an architect in his hometown and his mother, Adele Pauline Desmoutier, was devoted to music. The family was part of the bourgeois groups of the time.

He was very protected growing up, in part because from an early age he had many health problems. His sister died when Gustave was only 13 and was then taken out of school to take care of his health.

The Moreau's good economic position allowed Gustave to receive a good education and his father saw to it that he had a classical training. His mother, on the other hand, encouraged him to develop in the arts. This motivated him to start drawing at 8 years old.

Education

His true love for art was born after a visit to Italy when he was 15 years old. Later his father let him study with Picot, an artist not very important but who stood out for his vocation for teaching.

In 1847 he was part of the Royal School of Fine Arts in Paris. He left the institution after failing twice to win the Roma Prize, which was a scholarship given by the French government to art students.

Influences

For Gustave Moreau there was only one artist who really marked his work. French painter, although born in the Dominican Republic, Théodore Chassériau (1819-1857). Moreau and Chasseriau had a good relationship and, in fact, both lived on Rue Frochot.

Similarly, Moreau was no stranger to the work of other great artists of the time and of previous times. On a trip to Italy in 1857 he studied the works of renowned painters, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Giovanni Bellini. He spent two years studying the paintings of these painters.

Moreau's work also left a mark on other artists. It influenced the work of the French painter Odilo Redon (1840-1916), famous for his symbolist works from a very young age.

Moreau was a teacher at the School of Fine Arts in Paris. This role was carried out from 1888 until his death. There he also notably influenced other artists such as Henri Matisse or Georges Rouault. For many, he stood out for his more liberal style of teaching.

Death

He died on April 18, 1898. His house, where his workshop was also located, was ceded to the French state. The house later became the Gustave Moreau Museum, which opened in 1903.

In the museum you can find about eight thousand works by Moreau, including paintings, watercolors and drawings. The collections were organized by his executor and two of his closest friends.

In the Thyssen Museum, in Madrid, it also houses two of his most important works, such as Las Voces and Galatea.

Plays

The first works of Moreau were copying works of other recognized artists. He installed his workshop on the third floor of a house.

He began his career as such in 1852 when his work Piedad was exposed to the public. In the following years, he continued to produce paintings and exhibited works such as The Death of Darius and Athenians with the Minotaur.

His prime began in the 1860s, when he created Oedipus and the Sphinx. It was at this stage that he focused the themes of his works on religion, fantasy and history. It offered new readings to scenes already known, especially from Greek mythology.

Orpheus

This painting was made in 1866 and also represented a turning point in Moreau's work. The idea, the composition and the representation that is made of the decapitated head of Orpheus are fundamental characteristics of the Symbolist style. It is an oil that is currently in the Musée d'Orsay, in Paris.

The dance of Salome

This work marked an important change in the style of Moreau. He did not place, as was usual in his works, a figure in the center of the painting, something that did occur in other paintings such as the Oedipus, Sphinx or Orpheus.

He maintained other common principles in his works. There was a female figure and a male one, where the looks stood out. It is a watercolor that is in the Musée d'Orsay, in Paris.

Salomé's dance had a great impact in 1876 when it was exhibited. The relevance of this work reached into literature, where it appeared in works by Joris-Karl Huysmans.

Characteristics of his works

Moreau placed great importance on the use of imagination to create his artistic works. He resisted the characteristics of two other very popular currents during the time: realism and naturalism.

When Moreau began to work, Gustave Courbet stood out with realism, which stood out for representing people and subjects that were real. Naturalism, for its part, tried to make a faithful copy of what the eye saw.

Moreau's works, on the contrary, represented moments or situations present in the narrations of the bible or mythical stories. He used a large number of visually confusing symbols, which served to embody desires and emotions in rather abstract forms.

Moreau's paintings had the representation of divine and mortal beings, but both were in conflict. Its objective was the representation of the divine and earthly in crisis. He usually expressed these beings as the masculine and the feminine.

Normally his works have two central figures. These characters are characterized by having their eyes closed and their faces are reflected. Scholars affirm that this technique is a reflection of the psychoanalysis that took its first steps at the beginning of the 20th century. It represented the duality that exists in the minds of human beings.

He used light to enhance the atmosphere of his works. Light also fulfilled the function of giving a mystical and magical feeling to his paintings.

References

1. Cooke, P. (2014). Gustave Moreau: History Painting, Spirituality and Symbolism. Yale University Press.
2. Grigorian, N. (2009). European symbolism. New York: P. Lang.
3. Moreau, G., & Kaplan, J. (1974). Gustave Moreau.: Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
4. Selz, J., & Moreau, G. (1979). Gustave Moreau. Naefels, Switzerland: Bonfini Press.
5. Tsaneva, M. (2014). Gustave Moreau: 123 Paintings and Drawings.