Today was forecast for rain so we made the decision to go to a museum instead of out to one of the chateaus on the outskirts of Paris. The particular museum this time was the Gustave Moreau museum just south of Place Pigalle. Of course Pigalle is the sex centre of Paris where all the straight laced puritans can go to indulge their carnal visions of Paris, but just to the South is an area that was once dubbed "Nouvelle Athenes". This area was a concentration of classically designed buildings and where authors and painters resided during the 19th century, it's still a center for theatre and drama in Paris today.
The Moreau museum contains hundreds if not thousands of works by Moreau and if we understood the docent correctly was the first museum in Paris dedicated to a single artist. Now the fact that Moreau created the museum himself is a tribute to self-centered ego, but in fairness it has withstood the test of time.
He is regarded as a Symbolist, and most of his works center on myths from ancient antiquity and from the bible. So much of it is quite convoluted in design, but it's so much more than that. There are clear influences from JMW Turner and Degas (who was a great friend) and he was a superb draftsman as shown in his sketches.
Definitely he prefigures abstraction, the pre-Raphaelites, and Art Nouveau. It was also interesting to see where he applied swathes of color in amorphous shapes then went back over them with fine pointed brushes and pens to create the detail over the color, I grew up with paintings with designs like that in the 1950's! I've even seen art in various galleries here in Paris that are still selling paintings looking like that.
We had a nice lunch at a small brasserie in the neighborhood and then walked around for a bit before taking our bus back to the apartment.
Today was forecast for rain so we made the decision to go to a museum instead of out to one of the chateaus on the outskirts of Paris. The particular museum this time was the Gustave Moreau museum just south of Place Pigalle. Of course Pigalle is the sex centre of Paris where all the straight laced puritans can go to indulge their carnal visions of Paris, but just to the South is an area that was once dubbed "Nouvelle Athenes". This area was a concentration of classically designed buildings and where authors and painters resided during the 19th century, it's still a center for theatre and drama in Paris today. 
The Moreau museum contains hundreds if not thousands of works by Moreau and if we understood the docent correctly was the first museum in Paris dedicated to a single artist. Now the fact that Moreau created the museum himself is a tribute to self-centered ego, but in fairness it has withstood the test of time. 
He is regarded as a Symbolist, and most of his works center on myths from ancient antiquity and from the bible. So much of it is quite convoluted in design, but it's so much more than that. There are clear influences from JMW Turner and Degas (who was a great friend) and he was a superb draftsman as shown in his sketches. 
Definitely he prefigures abstraction, the pre-Raphaelites, and Art Nouveau. It was also interesting to see where he applied swathes of color in amorphous shapes then went back over them with fine pointed brushes and pens to create the detail over the color, I grew up with paintings with designs like that in the 1950's! I've even seen art in various galleries here in Paris that are still selling paintings looking like that.
No comments:
Post a Comment