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| Gustave Moreau Jupiter and Semele 1895 oil on canvas Musée Gustave Moreau, Paris |
Between Two Centuries
Extravagant praise from J.-K. Huysmans in À Rebours: "He remained unique in contemporary art, without ancestors and without possible descendants. He went to ethnographic sources, to the origins of myths, and he compared and elucidated their intricate enigmas. He reunited the legends of the Far East into a whole, the myths which had been altered by the superstitions of other peoples; thus justifying his architectonic fusions, his luxurious and outlandish fabrics, his hieratic and sinister allegories sharpened by the restless perceptions of a pruriently modern neurosis. And he remained saddened, haunted by the symbols of perversities and superhuman loves, of divine stuprations brought to an end without abandonment and without hope."
At the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) was the teacher of Matisse, of Rouault, and of Albert Marquet – all of whom set down their impressions of him. In his studio, transformed into an idiosyncratic museum, one could admire sketches that substantiated these affiliations. Generally shunned after World War I as outdated and pretentious, the Moreau museum became a site of pilgrimage for the Surrealists. In his finished works two manners coexist: the smoothness of conventional academic technique alongside rough encrustations of accumulated pigment. One sees plainly how this approach was developed by Braque, and by many others.
Lightning-Struck Woman
Encased in a structure with no discernible base or summit, surrounded by a disparate crowd of minor gods, Jupiter is seated on his centralized throne with a lyre – not a traditional attribute of his own, but of Apollo. Though generally represented as bearded and middle-aged, here he is clean-shaven and quite young, more like a god of India. On his knee rests Semele, whom he loves, portrayed as a much smaller figure. She has had the bizarre idea of asking him to appear to her in his full majesty. Distracted by love, the god was weak enough to agree; she could not withstand the shock and has perished from the vision.
As she died Semele gave birth to Dionysus, but he is not present in Moreau's picture. Just in front of Semele, Cupid (responsible for the situation) takes flight, hiding his eyes but unable to doubt the result of his mischief.
The Jewels and the Nude
Jupiter is ornamented with pharaonic bijouterie. Partly visible behind him is some sort of female saint crowned with a halo and holding a flame. Many of the figures in the foreground also are haloed. In this proliferating glare, the nude white body of Semele is rendered with the typical smoothness of a Beaux-Arts beauty. The glittering gems of this majestic scene are too numerous and powerful for the tender loved one, whose curving side is indeed covered with blood.
The jewels are a sort of writing, as well. In medieval thought, precious stones corresponded to aspects and powers of God's creation – they functioned like keys to the universe and to fate.
– translated and adapted from Le Musée imaginaire de Michel Butor: 105 œuvres décisives de la peinture occidentale (Paris: Flammarion, 2019)