A leading Symbolist, Gustave Moreau painted fantastical and mythological subject matter in a painterly and sensuous style. Moreau was influenced by the Romanticism of Eugène Delacroix and Théodore Chassériau (his teacher), but focused on the femme-fatales and virgins often associated with Symbolist painting. Salome Dancing Before Herod (1876), one of Moreau’s most famous works, took the artist seven years to paint, as he slowly built up the painting’s rich, encrusted surface. Moreau was also known for his semi-abstract watercolors, and was a teacher at the École des Beaux-Arts, where his pupils included Albert Marquet, Henri Matisse, and Georges Rouault. André Breton regarded Moreau as an important precursor to Surrealism.
A leading Symbolist, Gustave Moreau painted fantastical and mythological subject matter in a painterly and sensuous style. Moreau was influenced by the Romanticism of Eugène Delacroix and Théodore Chassériau (his teacher), but focused on the femme-fatales and virgins often associated with Symbolist painting. Salome Dancing Before Herod (1876), one of Moreau’s most famous works, took the artist seven years to paint, as he slowly built up the painting’s rich, encrusted surface. Moreau was also known for his semi-abstract watercolors, and was a teacher at the École des Beaux-Arts, where his pupils included Albert Marquet, Henri Matisse, and Georges Rouault. André Breton regarded Moreau as an important precursor to Surrealism.
