Gustave Moreau
1823-1898
French Symbolist Painter
His Style Was Influenced by the following Artists and Art movements -Théodore Chassériau and Titian
Education - studied under François-Edouard Picot and later with Théodore Chassériau (the two men were life long lovers)
Cause of Death - Pneumonia, He is buried in world famous Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris, France.
Gustav Moreau was one of
the greatest painters of
the Symbolist movement.
The movement was an
artistic uprising
opposed to Naturalism,
Realism and
Impressionism. Moreau
stated "I am dominated
by one thing, an
irresistible, burning
attraction towards the
abstract. The expression
of human feelings and
the passions of man
certainly interest me
deeply, but I am less
concerned with
expressing the motions
of the soul and mind
than to render visible,
so to speak, the inner
flashes of intuition
which have something
divine in their apparent
insignificance and
reveal magic, even
divine horizons, when
they are transposed into
the marvelous effects of
pure plastic art."
Jean Moreas's Symbolist Manifesto, published in Le Figaro in 1886, stated that realism was obsolete and declared that symbolism was the model to be treasured hence forth. The basic philosophy of this aesthetic movement was a belief that the passing tangible world is not true reality, but a reflection of the unseen Absolute. The writings of Edgar Allan Poe, and Joris Karl Huysmans, and the Gothic and Romanticism style were major influences. Painters based their imagery on magical, sacred and occasionally mythological themes.
Symbolist Writers: Joris-Karl Huysmans, Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, T. S. Eliot, Renée Vivien, William Blake, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Albert Samain, Rémy de Gourmont
Gustav Moreau
Quotations The artist is a
bridge from what is observable and familiar toward what is unfathomable
and censored. ~ Gustav Moreau Quote Without free will, art remains
bound by the chains imposed by the clergy. Imagination must be permitted
to take wing and fly as the stout pigeon in the park flutters in the
garden of magnificence and finally lunacy. ~ Gustav Moreau Quote Key
Descriptive Words and Phrases associated with Symbolist
Painting - emotional effects, emotional experience,
avant-garde, nineteenth-century, Les Fleurs du mal, Charles Baudelaire,
Edgar Allan Poe, psychological depths, symbolic colors, exaggerated imagery, human
psyche, exaggeration, primitivism, transparent colors, self-expression,
expression intensity, psychological, symbolic themes,
universal subject matter, industrial modern age, individual genius, sense of
otherness, otherworldly
☼☼☼☼☼
No one could have less faith in the absolute and definitive importance
of the work created by man, because I believe that this world is nothing
but a dream... ~ Gustav Moreau Quote
☼☼☼☼☼
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