It was his charcoal drawings and prints which first started showing weird chimeras. They then migrated to his canvas in strange but exquisite paintings.
symbolism
His late paintings were a mixture of symbolism and classical myth. Prominent are murals and a mosaic in the Library of Congress.
Mainly paintings of classical mythology, including Marsyas Enchanting the Hares, and several developed from his illustrations for The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.
Dividing his life between New York and Rome, by 1870 he was painting Symbolist masterpieces and superb landscapes in Italy.
Thirteen paintings tracing The Creation of the World, made in 1905-06 by this Lithuanian composer and painter.
A musical prodigy, he was synaesthetic, and studied painting after he had trained in music. A true Symbolist.
He developed a fascination for the form of the agave plant, and painted a series of figurative works showing ladies in a fictional country estate.
Moreau defined painting as “this language of symbol, myth and sign”, and this is his greatest expression of that.
His two paintings of Salome shown at the 1876 Salon are dominated if not overwhelmed by their symbols. They are the watershed in his art.
Moreau is often claimed as a ‘father of Symbolism’, or even a Symbolist. A detailed look at his first great success at the Salon: is it regular narrative or symbolist?
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