From Ingres to Matisse

July 11, 2020August 22, 2020 by Jessica In France, Paris 2 Comments

Musée National Gustave Moreau

Gustave Moreau has always been sort of in my periphery, without me paying much attention beyond those few paintings that I encountered in different museums by chance, and which I recognized as his by their mysterious and eerie atmosphere. So it was mostly with curiosity that I visited this museum, and left having found a new favorite.

The building housing the museum was once his private home, until 1895 came around and Moreau himself decided to turn the dwelling into a studio and museum, with his private apartment remaining on the first floor.

Born in Paris and child to an architect and a musician, Moreau first fell in love with art at the age of 15 when he visited Italy. At 18 years old, he began attending the École des Beaux-Arts of Paris, and departed six years later, after which he began to work under a new mentor, Théodore Chassériau, who studied under Ingres and whose own work became a huge influence on Moreau’s.

Moreau was part of the French Symbolist movement, and created work with an emphasis on depicting biblical and mythological figures. Forever marked by his early visits to Italy, there is also a strong Renaissance inclination in his pieces.

Later in life, he became a professor at the Paris École des Beaux-Arts (his alma mater), where he taught the likes of Henri Matisse, and at which post he remained until his death at the age of 72. He produced an impressive oeuvre, numbering in over 8,000 paintings, watercolors, and drawings.