Gustave Moreau: Bizarre Sensuousness

Gustave Moreau - The Apparition - c. 1874-76 - Oil on canvas - 142 x 103 cm - Musee Gustave Moreau, Paris (click photo for larger image)One of the leading Symbolist artists, Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) had a unique feeling for the bizarre and developed a style that is highly distinctive in subject and technique. His preference was for mystically intense images evoking long-dead civilizations and mythologies, treated with an extraordinary sensuousness. Although he had some success at the Salon, he had no need to court this and much of his life was spent in seclusion. In 1892 he became a professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and proved an inspired teacher, bringing out his pupils' individual talents, rather than trying to impose his style on them. His pupils included Marquet and Matisse, but his favorite was Rouault, who became the first curator of the Moreau Museum in Paris (the artist's house), which Moreau left to the nation on his death. The bulk of his work is preserved there.