To capture the inner flashes . . .

Today is the birthday of Gustave Moreau (April 6, 1826 – April 18, 1898), a French Symbolist painter, sculptor and watercolorist famous for his illustration of biblical and mythological figures.

He preferred to paint mythological subjects, symbolist work that is thought to be a forerunner of surrealism.

Gustave Moreau was the recipient of many honors, yet refused to sell his paintings except to friends. In 1892, he was given a painting professor position at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, where his pupils included Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault. After his death, his house in Paris (now the Musée Moreau), with his fine art collection, was bequeathed to the nation.

"I believe neither in what I touch nor what I see. I only believe in what I do not see, and solely in what I feel." - Gustave Moreau

"I have never looked for dream in reality or reality in dream. I have allowed my imagination free play, and I have not been led astray by it." - Gustave Moreau

The Rape of Europa 1869

Gustave Moreau

Musee d'Orsay, Paris, France

"No one could have less faith in the absolute and definitive importance of the work created by man, because I believe that this world is nothing but a dream." - Gustave Moreau

"I am less concerned with expressing the motions of the soul and mind than to render visible, so to speak, the inner flashes of intuition which have something divine in their apparent insignificance . . ." - Gustave Moreau

Moreau image source (1)

Art trivia . . .

On April 1, 1867, the Paris Exposition Universelle de 1867 opened and proved to be a historic event for the 19th century art movement known as Impressionism. The exposition drew over eleven million visitors, including exhibitors and employees. This exposition was the greatest up to its time of all international expositions, both with respect to its extent and to the scope of its plan.

Paris Exposition Universelle

(1867)

It was during the 1867 Paris Expo that a plan was first suggested for a group Impressionist exhibition and as a result of that plan, the first Impressionist exhibition was held in Paris in 1874. The Impressionists managed to hold seven subsequent shows until their final show in 1886.

Édouard Manet, rejected by the same 1867 exhibition, held his own retrospective nearby and painted a panoramic cityscape, Paris Exposition Universelle de 1867, which is considered one of the founding works of Impressionism.

Exposition Universelle de Paris

Édouard Manet

1867

Most references to Impressionist painting refers to the work produced between about 1867 and 1886 by a group of artists who shared a set of related approaches and techniques known as Impressionism. (Impressionism also describes art created in this style, but outside of the late 19th century time period.)

The central figures in the development of Impressionism in France were:

Frédéric Bazille (1841-1870)
Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894)
Mary Cassatt (1844-1926)
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)
Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
Armand Guillaumin (1841-1927)
Édouard Manet (1832-1883)
Claude Monet (1840-1926)
Berthe Morisot (1841-1895)
Camille Pissarro (1830-1903)
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)
Alfred Sisley (1839-1899)

Exposition Universelle image source (1)

Manet painting source (1)