Gustave Moreau Biography | Oil Paintings

Gustave Moreau visited Italy when he was fifteen years old, the trip inspired his love of art when he was eighteen in 1844 he went to Paris to study under the guidance of François-Édouard Picot for six years. He then went to study with Théodore Chassériau in 1850, whose work strongly influenced his own.

Gustave Moreau first Paris Salon exhibit was in 1852. His first painting was a Pietà which is now located in the Cathedral at Angoulême. He showed the Song of Songs and The Death of Darius in the Paris Salon of 1853 along with Athenians with the Minotaur and Moses Putting Off his Sandals within Sight of the Promised Land.

The death of Chasseriau in 1856 caused Moreau to be depressed and he stopped painting altogether and withdrew from the public eye. Concerned about his emotional condition, Moreau's parents suggested he travel to Italy again, the advice paid off, He went to live in Italy from for three years from 1857 to 1859 and just as his first time there, he found a new love for art.

Oedipus and the Sphinx, one of his first Symbolist erotic paintings of a mythological and religious subject, was exhibited at the Salon of 1864. Gustave Moreau quickly gained a reputation for eccentricity. The painting is in the permanent collection of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Gustave Moreau became a professor at Paris' École des Beaux-Arts in 1891 and among his many students were Fauvist painters Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault. Other students that he taught included Jules Flandrin, Theodor Pallady, and Léon Printemps.

During his lifetime, Gustave Moreau produced more than 8,000 paintings, watercolors, and drawings, many of which are on display in Paris' Musée National Gustave Moreau. The museum began operation in 1903. Gustave Moreau's art can also be considered as a precursor of Surrealism.

Art Movement: Symbolism.
Artists Influencing Gustave Moreau: François-Édouard Picot.
Painters Gustave Moreau Influenced: Henri Matisse, Georges Rouault, Jules Flandrin, Theodor Pallady, Léon Printemps.
He Traveled To Italy, Holland.
Artist Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist, with text adapted from Wikipedia.