French artist, symbolist
short biography
(fr. Gustave Moreau) (April 6, 1826, Paris - April 18, 1898, Paris) - French artist, representative of symbolism.
Gustave Moreau was born in 1826 in Paris in the family of the chief architect of Paris, whose duties included maintaining the city's public buildings and monuments in proper form. Early discovered the ability to draw and paint. In 1842, thanks to his father's patronage, Moreau received a certificate of a copyist of paintings, which allows him to freely visit the Louvre and work in its halls at any time.
With the support and approval of his parents, in 1846 he entered the School of Fine Arts, in the studio of François Picot, a classicist master, who taught him the basics of painting. Education here was extremely conservative and mainly consisted of copying plaster casts from ancient statues, drawing male nudes, studying anatomy, perspective and the history of painting. Having suffered a fiasco in the competition for the Prix de Rome, he leaves Pico's workshop. Moreau bows to Delacroix, whose influence is visible in early works (for example, "Pieta", exhibited at the Salon of 1852).
Moreau was a student of Théodore Chasserio at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 1849 Moreau exhibited his work at the Salon. In 1852, Moreau's father buys a house for him at number 14, rue La Rochefoucauld, on the right bank of the Seine, not far from the Saint-Lazare Palace. In this prestigious place, in a luxurious mansion, luxuriously and expensively furnished, as befits the best bourgeois houses, Moreau sets up a workshop on the third floor. He lives and works in the best conditions, continues to receive government orders, become a member of high society and official artistic circles. October 10, 1856 Delacroix writes in his diary: “Seeing poor Chasserio. I saw Doz, Diaz and young Moreau, the artist. I quite like him."
Moreau never denied that he owed a lot in his work to Chasserio, his friend, who passed away early (at the age of 37). On his early departure, Moreau painted the canvas Youth and Death (1865). The influence of Theodore Chasserio is also evident in the two large canvases that Moreau began to paint in the 1850s, in The Suitors of Penelope and The Daughters of Theseus. Working on these huge, with a lot of details, paintings, he almost did not leave the studio. However, this high demands on himself subsequently often became the reason why the artist left the work unfinished.
During two trips to Italy (1841 and from 1857 to 1859), he visited Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples, where Moreau studied the art of the Renaissance - the masterpieces of Andrea Mantegna, Crivelli, Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci. He brings from there several hundred copies of the works of the great masters of the Renaissance. He also paints pastels and watercolors, reminiscent of the work of Corot. During this period, he meets with Bonnat, Elie Delaunay, the young Degas, whom he helps in his early searches. From now on, Moreau assimilates a characteristic style imbued with the spirit of romanticism - hieratic-frozen, alien to movement and action. In 1862, the artist's father dies.
Creation
Theophile Gautier wrote about G. Moreau's painting: it is "... so strange, unusual for the eye and so deliberate in its originality, created for a discerning, knowledgeable and refined spirit." (“Gustave Moreau Museum”, Paris, 1997, p. 16.). In 1864, he exhibits Oedipus and the Sphinx at the Salon - the picture provokes a strong reaction, leaving none of the critics indifferent. This symbolic-allegorical work was the true creative debut of Moreau. A creature with the face and chest of a woman, the wings of a bird and the body of a lion - the Sphinx - clung to the torso of Oedipus; both characters are in a strange stupor, as if hypnotizing each other with a look. A clear drawing, sculptural molding of forms speak of academic training. The discovery of Oedipus and the Sphinx helped Odilon Redon realize his vocation, and his first canvases were inspired by the works of Moreau.
Now he takes mythological or biblical subjects for his paintings and prefers female images. The inner world and appearance of Moro's heroines correspond to his understanding of the Eternal Femininity. The mythical woman in the artist's image is a surreal and beautiful creature, whose graceful forms are emphasized by expensive jewelry. She is called Salome, Elena, Leda, Pasiphae, Galatea, Cleopatra, Delilah, embodying either the fatal force that decides the fate of a man, or a seductive animal. She appears, like a ghost, in magnificent clothes, showered with precious stones. Moreau remained a bachelor, the only ruler of his thoughts and confidante was his mother, who lived until 1894. Perhaps this fact should be seen as an explanation of how great the place occupied by a woman in his work. In 1869, the painting "Prometheus and Europe", proposed by the artist to the Salon, caused sharp criticism, after which he did not exhibit for a long time, and in 1876 returned to the Salon with the paintings "Salome" and "Vision". One of his most famous paintings - "The Appearance" (1876, Paris, Gustave Moreau Museum) - is written on the gospel story about the dance of Salome before King Herod, in return for which she demanded the head of John the Baptist. From the dark space of the hall in front of Salome appears a vision of the bloody head of John the Baptist, exuding a dazzling radiance. The artist endows the image of a ghost with persuasiveness that disturbs the imagination. In 1880, he participated in the exhibition for the last time, showing two canvases: “Helen at the walls of Troy”, where a woman is presented as a vicious creature guilty of war and death of people, and “Galatea”: here the heroine is an object of desire, to which in vain the huge eye of the Cyclops is chained. Moreau achieved a special shimmering effect by carefully mixing the colors. The artist was fond of various creative trends, he was well versed in music and jewelry, art and luxury goods.
In 1868, Moreau was appointed chairman of the jury for the Grand Prix de Rome. In 1875, Gustave Moreau received the highest award of the French Republic - the Order of the Legion of Honor. In 1884, the artist's mother dies. This loss literally crippled the artist, for several months Moreau did not approach the easel. He often traveled out of town and abroad, on these trips the artist is accompanied by the faithful Alexandrine, whom he never married. Huysmans, an admirer of Moreau, noted that "without a clear ancestor, without possible descendants, he (Moro) remained a loner in contemporary art."
A real hermit, Gustave Moreau is a stranger to the mass public; his work is addressed to a refined elite, capable of understanding the world of mythological or medieval symbolism, whose heroines are Salome and Galatea, frozen in seductive poses, or virgins lavishing ambiguous caresses on unicorns. These legendary characters were sung by Parnassian and Symbolist poets, including Théodore de Banville and José Maria de Heredia, Jean Lorrain and Albert Samin, Henri de Regnier and Huysmans, Jules Laforgue and Milos. Moreau was a favorite salon painter in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, praised by Robert de Montesquieu and Oscar Wilde, and Marcel Proust remembers him as the painter Elstir in In Search of Lost Time. Seeing the watercolor "Phaeton" at the World Exhibition of 1878, the artist Odilon Redon, shocked by the work, wrote: "This work is able to pour new wine into the skins of old art. The artist's vision is fresh and new... At the same time, he follows the inclinations of his own nature. Redon, like many critics of that time, saw Moreau's main merit in the fact that he was able to give a new direction to traditional painting, to bridge the gap between the past and the future. The symbolist writer Huysmans, author of the cult decadent novel The Reverse (1884), considered Moreau to be a "unique artist" with "neither real predecessors nor possible successors."
Prone to misanthropy, Moreau refuses to exhibit his paintings, does not even allow them to be reproduced, and reluctantly agrees to sell. “I love my art so much,” he writes, “that I will feel happy only if I write for myself.” In 1888, Moreau was elected to the Academy of Fine Arts, and in 1891 he became a professor at the School of Fine Arts in Paris, replacing Delaunay in this place. His students include Henri Matisse, Georges Rouault, Odilon Redon, Gustave Pierre. In 1890, his life partner Adelaide-Alexandrina Dure died. Loving one woman for twenty years and heartbroken from her untimely death, Moreau in 1890 creates the painting "Orpheus on the grave of Eurydice." Here, longing and despair are expressed, first of all, through an expressively resolved landscape, where the figure of Orpheus is a certain accent, a detail, in the general anxiously tense landscape-mood. It is not known whether the French master painted portraits of Alexandrina Dore, however, his numerous mythological female images (often approaching Baudelaire’s aesthetics in their inner message) are devoid of any individualization: these are generalized-typed face-states in which, as a rule, there is a state of mystery and vagueness. His canvases, watercolors and drawings were devoted mainly to biblical, mystical and fantastic themes. His painting had a huge influence on Fauvism and Surrealism. Moreau was an excellent connoisseur of old art, an admirer of ancient Greek art and a lover of Oriental luxury items, silk, weapons, porcelain and carpets.
Moreau died in 1898 and was buried in the Montmartre cemetery. Since 1903, the Gustave Moreau Museum has been located in his former studio in the IX arrondissement of Paris. Moreau's canvases are also in Neuss.
Works
- In 1864, when the artist showed "Oedipus and the Sphinx" - the first painting that really attracted the attention of critics - one of them noted that this canvas reminded him of "a potpourri on the themes of Mantegna, created by a German student who rested while working reading Schopenhauer".
- Wanting to protect himself from unwanted interpretations, he often accompanied his paintings with detailed comments and sincerely regretted that "until now there has not been a single person who could seriously talk about my painting."
- In 1895, after work on the huge canvas "Jupiter and Semele" was completed, Moreau embarks on his last big project: he arranges a house-museum in his own mansion. In this way, he wants to make art available to the public, and also be sure that it will be preserved for future generations.
- Having sold few works during his lifetime, Moreau bequeathed to the state his mansion, along with a studio where about 1,200 paintings and watercolors, as well as more than 10,000 drawings, were stored (the national house-museum is located at La Rochefoucauld 14, ninth arrondissement of Paris). During the life of the artist, only 3 works were acquired by French museums, foreign - not a single one. The museum's partners are the Orsay Museum, the National Opera Museum and the Henner Museum. An entry ticket to one of these museums is valid for a week to purchase discounted tickets to the other two.
- Moreau deliberately sought to saturate his paintings with amazing details as much as possible, this was his strategy, which he called "the need for luxury." Moreau worked on his paintings for a long time, sometimes for several years, constantly adding more and more new details that multiplied on the canvas, like reflections in mirrors. When the artist no longer had enough space on the canvas, he hemmed additional strips. This happened, for example, with the painting “Jupiter and Semele” and with the unfinished painting “Jason and the Argonauts”.
- Critics saw in him a representative of symbolism, although the artist himself repeatedly and decisively rejected this label.
- Over the years, Moreau increasingly believed that he was the last custodian of traditions, and rarely spoke with approval of modern artists, even those with whom he was friends. Moreau believed that the painting of the Impressionists was superficial, devoid of morality and could not but lead these artists to spiritual death.
- G. Moreau had a strong influence on O. Redon (for Redon, Moreau's modernism consisted in his "following his own nature"), the Belgian symbolists F. Knopf, J. Delville, on the theorist of surrealism A. Breton. Moreau is considered the father of "Fauvism": he was the direct teacher of A. Matisse, J. Rouault, A. Marquet and others (being the head of the National School of Fine Arts (1892-98).
- At the beginning of the XX century. the work of Gustave Moreau was almost forgotten until Andre Breton and the surrealists appeared, who rediscovered it (Breton called the world of Moreau "the somnambulistic world"), Salvador Dali and Max Ernst also revered him. Referring with a vivid metaphor of the “sphinx seized by its claws” to the painting “Oedipus and the Sphinx” by Gustave Moreau, Breton emphasizes here his personal gratitude, dating back to his youthful years, to this artist, to the magical images of the heroines of which he will turn more than once and to the catalog of whose retrospective exhibition he will write foreword in 1960
Famous sayings
- “I would never have learned to express myself without constant meditation in front of the works of geniuses: the Sistine Madonna and some of the creations of Leonardo.”
- “I never looked for dreams in reality or reality in dreams. I gave freedom to the imagination,” Moreau liked to repeat, considering fantasy one of the most important forces of the soul.
Moreau's paradoxical work is at the crossroads of the art of the 19th century. Peter Cook at the end of a monographic work on Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) calls him a protosymbolist, less often a historical painter, but in general it is difficult to categorize him. The best of his intricate biblical and mythological paintings are etched in memory but difficult to decipher. Gustave Moreau: History Painting, Spirituality and Symbolism (Gustave Moreau: history painting, spirituality and symbolism) is an attempt to shed light on this highly idiosyncratic figure on the fringes of French art.
His classical compositions in oil depict figures in isolated light areas, surrounded by large dark areas, colored patches of color that give these grottoes and throne rooms a jeweled appearance. The facial expressions of his characters are restrained, and their gestures are unnatural and solemn. Clothing and architecture are covered with intricate decorations that give the paintings a pseudo-organic appearance. By the end of the Second Empire, salon history painting was becoming an exercise in sensationalism and tickling the nerves. It is hard not to see Moreau as willingly torturing himself with a tradition of historical painting whose days he suspected were numbered. His work lies between the neoclassical approach to history painting and the emerging Symbolist movement, which Moreau felt was not significant enough. In the extremely complex and eclectic worldview of the artist, devotion to art was combined with pantheistic mythology and Catholic mysticism. Moreau's position as an anti-realist was a consequence of his attachment to idealism. His political views were extremely monarchist and nationalist.
Cook suggests that the negative response to Moreau's salon works after the success of his Oedipus and the Sphinx (1864) was due to the confusion of styles and the difficulty of interpreting pictorial narratives. He used neoclassicism as the basis of his approach, but included both the emotional coloring of romanticism and the ornamentalism of the Far Eastern and Islamic art. Cook compares Moreau's paintings with others exhibited at the Salon of the same year. This is instructive, since many of those paintings were painted by little-known artists and have been lost or ended up in the vaults of provincial museums.
The mixed reception of his salon works contributed to the fact that Moreau began to consider himself an unheeded prophet. Wanting to secure his position in the next generations, he passed on his principles to numerous students. And he worked on paintings, which, according to the artist's intention, were to be in a posthumous museum dedicated to his work. And if none of the students became his follower, then the Parisian house-museum of Moreau turned out to be a more lasting legacy. Moreau created copies of his successful canvases so they could be stored here.
As a teacher at the Higher School of Fine Arts, Moreau was in contact with a generation of artists who later created modernism. Students Henri Matisse, Albert Marquet and Charles Camoin formed the backbone of the Fauvist movement, opposed to the ideals of the teacher. Cook shows that Moreau was a benevolent mentor who recommended copying a wide range of works and made a positive impression on the students. But of all the greatest students of Moreau, only Georges Rouault became an allegory artist and a consistent opponent of realism. Moreau was the last champion of a tradition from which later artists finally turned away. His work is very attractive and subtle enough to deserve the belated attention that Cook paid to him.
Text: Alexander Adams
What do we know about 19th century artists? Big names are heard by everyone, but there are those who remained unknown to the world. Each of them made a contribution to art with their canvases. The artist Gustave Moreau was one of those who entered the ranks of the great painters, he rightfully takes his place there.
Youth
The French symbolist was born in Paris in the 19th century. He immediately understood who he wanted to be, and therefore he studied at the school of fine arts for a long time. Already from his youth, the orientation in his works was manifested: biblical. He created paintings on mysterious themes, so his works are still fascinating and carry something secret and mystical.
After school, Gustave Moreau decides to enter the academy. Thanks to his father, he was able to stay at the Louvre when he needed to and work there, inspired by the masterpieces of world geniuses. In 1848 Moreau participated in the Grand Prix competition. Both attempts were unsuccessful, and the painter left the academy.
To be inspired, the great artists of the 19th century loved to travel in search of a muse. Moreau went to Italy twice. At this time, he was able to get into all the most beautiful corners of this country: Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples. In addition to the extraordinary architecture of the time, here he studied the Renaissance and the famous authors of the time.
Working with the state
In addition to the fact that Gustave Moreau, whose paintings were already a success, worked on his masterpieces, he carried out the order of the state. His task was to create a huge copy of Carracci's painting. Everyone liked the creation, and they made another order for a copy of the painting, but Moreau refused, saying that he wanted his works to be bought, and not copies of his colleagues. After such a statement, Gustave was ordered to create his own canvas.
New stage of creativity
A new stage began with the purchase of housing. The father loved his son very much, so in 1852 he bought him a chic house. From the windows one could see the Saint-Lazare train station, and Moro was noisy nearby and immediately decided to create a personal creative place on one of the floors and get to work. A chic mansion helped and inspired him. Gustave lived in excellent conditions, fulfilling the orders of the state. He gradually became well received in the circles of famous artists.
During this period, he learned about the pregnancy of his girlfriend, who lived in Rome. The painter decided to leave the unfortunate. His mother agreed with this decision, she believed that both the wedding and the small child would destroy the career of the future great painter. This dragged on for several years. Gustave's parents also came here, deciding to accompany the artist on his trips. In Italy he was inspired by Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Crivelli and other great artists. Therefore, he brought home sketches and finished canvases, saturated with Italian flavor.
Sudden love and dizzying success
After returning to the capital of France, Moreau begins to work in his mansion, sometimes visiting friends. On one of these evenings he spoke to the governess, Alexandrine Dureau. Sudden light love develops into an incredible passion, but lovers hide their feelings.
The death of his father in 1862 touched the artist, and in his grief he decided to devote himself to art and education. Moreau's creations are in demand, and he is becoming popular both in Paris and far beyond. In the late 60s, Gustave became the head of the jury of the same Grand Prix, in which he was defeated twice in his youth. In the mid-70s, the painter received France's highest award - the Order of the Legion of Honor.
Sunset of creativity
In 1884 Gustave lost his mother. This tragic event did not allow him to calmly create, and for six months he could not work fruitfully. Age also made itself felt. Gustave increasingly leaves Paris, travels to other countries, accompanied by his beloved Alexandrine. Already in 1888 he became a member of the Academy of Fine Arts, and after 3 years he became a professor at the Paris School of Art.
In the early 1890s, Alexandrine dies, five years later Gustave finishes his gigantic work "Jupiter and Semele" and decides to organize a museum in his house. The artist died in 1898, was buried in the Montmartre cemetery, his beloved Alexandrine Dureau rests somewhere nearby.
Museum
Before his death, Gustave Moreau, whose biography is rich and vibrant, left his works and property as a legacy to the city. The painter managed to keep a collection of his canvases and sketches, also collected works of great artists, sculptors, rare furniture and other items of the 19th century.
The Gustave Moreau House Museum has now become an unusually popular place in Paris. Although the painter failed to translate his ideas into reality, the Paris City Hall took care of his legacy. The city created an extraordinary house-museum, which now houses the most complete collection of paintings
This "painter's paradise" occupied two floors. On the first - all the walls are hung with works of Moreau. To help future connoisseurs of art, Gustave made descriptions of the paintings; in the museum, these notes were also translated into English. In addition, among the finished works on easels are those that the artist left unfinished.
The second floor is filled with a collection of paintings by other artists, as well as sculptures, antique furniture - everything that Gustave Moreau could collect on his own. At the moment, a pass to the house-museum costs 6 euros for adults, and children under 18 years old are admitted free of charge.
Paintings
Among the paintings that the painter left behind, there are known to everyone and everyone. One of them is "Jupiter and Semele", written two years before the death of the artist. The canvas depicts allegorical figures that carry a certain meaning: Death, Suffering, Night, etc.
The whole space is filled with unusual plants, fantastic architectural solutions and sculptural sculptures. It is also very important that the artist comments on all this abundance of images and fantasies, since it is difficult for the viewer to independently identify all the characters. The very same legend of Semele on the canvas acquires a certain mysticism and mystery.
Analyzing the art of Gustave, it becomes clear his desire for "necessary splendor". The painter argued that we should pay attention to the masters of the past, who will not teach us poor art. The artists of the past tried to display on their canvases only the richest, rarest and most magnificent that was in their time. The outfits that they depicted in their works, jewelry, objects - all this was adopted by Moreau.
Another popular painting by Gustave is The Apparition, which he created in 1876. Like many others, it contains a religious story, in this case, the gospel story. The canvas refers to Salome, who dances in front of Herod, behind the head. At this time, the head of John appears in front of Salome, creating a magnificent dazzling radiance.
In the 1860-1870s, when the Impressionists appeared, indifferent to the historical, religious, literary plot in painting, one of the most mysterious artists of the 19th century appeared on the artistic scene of France, the inventor of fantastic plots, exquisite, mysterious and mystical images - Gustave Moreau.
One of his most famous paintings - "The Appearance" (1876, Paris, Gustave Moreau Museum) - is written on the gospel story about the dance of Salome before King Herod, in return for which she demanded the head of John the Baptist. From the dark space of the hall in front of Salome appears a vision of the bloody head of John the Baptist, exuding a dazzling radiance. The artist endows the image of a ghost with persuasiveness that disturbs the imagination.
Moreau received a good professional training, studied with Pico, a master of the classical orientation, was influenced by Delacroix and, especially, Chasserio; spent two years in Italy, copying the old masters, he was attracted by the paintings of Carpaccio, Gozzoli, Mantegna and others.
Moreau's Oedipus and the Sphinx was exhibited at the Salon of 1864 (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art). A creature with the face and chest of a woman, the wings of a bird and the body of a lion - the Sphinx - clung to the torso of Oedipus; both characters are in a strange stupor, as if hypnotizing each other with a look. A clear drawing, sculptural molding of forms speak of academic training.
Moreau's themes continue to be concentrated around the mythology of different cultures - ancient, Christian, oriental. However, the artist paints the myth in accordance with his own imagination: the painting “Orpheus” (1865, Paris, Musee d'Orsay) depicts a young woman carrying the head of a beautiful singer on a lyre - according to legend, Orpheus was torn to pieces by Bacchantes.
The death of the poet is also dedicated to the canvas “The Dead Poet and the Centaur” (c. 1875, Paris, Gustave Moreau Museum). Art, poetry, beauty are doomed to perish on earth - perhaps this is his idea, but the content of the master's works is ambiguous, and the viewer is given the opportunity to guess the meaning of the works himself.
Studying the paintings of the masters of the past, Moreau comes to the conclusion that the artist in his work must follow the principle of "necessary splendor". “Refer to the great masters,” said Moreau. - They don't teach us how to create poor art. Artists of different times used in their paintings everything that they knew of the most rich, brilliant, rare, even the most strange, everything that was considered luxurious, precious among them ... What outfits, what crowns, what jewels ... what carved thrones! ... Great and simple-hearted geniuses include in their compositions unknown and delicate vegetation, delightful and bizarre fauna, armfuls of flowers, garlands of unprecedented fruits and graceful animals.
Over the years, Moreau's works become more and more multicolored, filled with details, magnificent jewelry, precious fabrics, sometimes turning the master's canvases into the likeness of beautiful tapestries or enamels.
But, unlike the Impressionists, who wrote with separate strokes, pure colors, Moreau carefully mixes the colors on the palette, achieving a special shimmering alloy, an amalgam, where strokes of flaming scarlet cinnabar, blue cobalt, golden ocher, blue, green, pink are shimmering ("Salome dancing before Herod", 1876, Los Angeles, private collection; "Unicorns", ca. 1885, Paris, Gustave Moreau Museum; "Galatea", 1880-1881, Paris, private collection).
In his works, Moreau seeks to embody ideas and thoughts that are sometimes beyond the capabilities of painting - the art of space, not time; he dreams of expressing the inexpressible in plastic images. This can explain the detailed comments with which the artist accompanies his work. So, referring to the myth of Jupiter and Semele, Moreau writes: “In the center of colossal aerial structures ... a sacred flower rises, on the dark azure of the star-bearing vault - the Deity ... reveals itself in splendor; ... Semele, having inhaled the aromas exhaled by the Divine, transformed .., dies, as if struck by lightning. ... Ascension to the higher spheres, ... that is, earthly death and the apotheosis of immortality.
The canvas “Jupiter and Semele” (1896, Paris, Gustave Moreau Museum) is filled with allegorical figures symbolizing Death, Suffering, the monsters of the Night, Erebus, the Genius of earthly love, Pan, etc. The space is braided with fantastic plants, bizarre architectural forms, sculptural sculptures . The brush does not keep up with the imagination and fantasy of the painter, so many works remained unfinished, and most importantly, it is difficult for the viewer to understand this jumble of symbols without verbal interpretation. The legend of Semele (who begged Jupiter to appear before her in all his formidable power and died, giving life at the moment of death to the god of winemaking Dionysus), turns into a kind of mystical treatise.
More successful canvases by Moreau, not burdened with too complex symbolic concepts and allegories - "Peacock complaining to Juno" (1881), "Helen under the walls of Troy" (c. 1885, both - Paris, Gustave Moreau Museum).
For some time at the beginning of the 20th century, the name Moreau was forgotten, but then he had ardent propagandists and admirers - the surrealists Andre Breton, Salvator Dali, Max Ernst. In addition, Moreau was a good teacher who raised a whole galaxy of famous painters of the 20th century - Matisse, Rouault, Marquet, Manguin, who respected and appreciated Moreau as a subtle colorist, an intelligent, comprehensively educated person. In 1898, the artist bequeathed his workshop with everything that was in it to the state. The Gustave Moreau Museum was organized there, the first curator of which was Georges Rouault.
Veronika Starodubova
A man with a classical art education and great knowledge in the field of art, Gustave Moreau became one of the leaders of the Symbolists, a movement that gained strength in the second half of the 19th century. Symbolists are often combined with decadents, but Moreau's work is difficult to attribute to any particular branch. His paintings use historical motifs, classical color combinations and avant-garde depiction techniques.
By birth, Gustave Moreau was a Parisian, where he was born in 1826 in a family that was quite close to art - his father was an architect. The future artist studied at the Paris School of Fine Arts, and already in 1849 he began to exhibit at the Salon. He was interested in samples of historical painting and the work of old masters, so he made several trips to where he studied the surviving creations of the best masters of the Renaissance.
His work was seriously influenced by motifs that were often used in the paintings of famous artists of the past - historical, biblical, legendary, fabulous, epic. From here the master drew ideas for his future paintings with a pronounced mystical beginning, characteristic of symbolism. However, unlike the classical motifs of paintings, his style of depiction was completely advanced, in the spirit of the time, with the search for special effects and the author's handwriting.
Moreau's work was recognized and appreciated by his contemporaries. In 1868 he became chairman of an art competition, and in 1875 his achievements in art were marked by the Order of the Legion of Honor, the highest award given for services to the French Republic.
The artist was fond of the classical art of ancient Greece, he was very fond of oriental luxury, richly decorated utensils and dishes, rare expensive weapons, fabrics and carpets. In his paintings on mystical, biblical and historical motifs, he often used these objects of rare beauty, admiring their perfection and beautiful colors. The master's painting is recognizable and quite specific, it uses a lot of bright colors, but by some miracle they manage not to become a motley collection of colors, but to give the impression of wholeness and unity of the image and its embodiment. The paintings are very expressive and amaze with mastery of color. Even well-known motives from the Bible are interpreted by him in his own way, very individually and non-trivially.
In 1888 Gustave Moreau became a member of the French Academy of Arts and in 1891 began teaching as a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts. Among those whom he taught are such famous masters as Odilon Redon, Georges Rouault and Gustave Pierre. It is believed that Moreau's paintings had a very strong influence on the formation of Fauvism and Surrealism.
Five years after the death of Gustave Moreau in 1898, a museum was organized in his Parisian workshop. His works are in many worlds, including in.
