Gustave MoreauFrance, 1826–1898Hesiod and the Muse
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Paris, France
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À propos du tableau
Hésiode et la Muse est un tableau réalisé en 1891 par le peintre français Gustave Moreau. De format vertical, cette huile sur bois est une peinture mythologique qui représente, dans le style symboliste de l'artiste, Hésiode jouant de la lyre sous l'inspiration d'une Muse.
Aperçu de trois quarts par son profil droit, le poète antique y figure debout au fond d'un ravin dominé, dans le lointain, par la façade d'un temple grec érigé sur une montagne, sans doute le mont Hélicon. Coiffé d'une couronne de laurier, il est par ailleurs presque entièrement nu. Il tient devant lui son instrument, qu'il regarde d'un air triste. Dans son dos, la Muse, qui est vêtue en rouge, déploie des ailes bleu-vert tout en guidant sa main droite de la sienne.
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Signée et datée dans son angle inférieur droit, l'œuvre est dédicacée à Henri Delaborde, à qui elle appartient un temps. Elle entre dans les collections publiques à la faveur de son don par Étienne Blanc en 1961. Elle est affectée depuis 1986 au musée d'Orsay, à Paris.
Notice
- Numéro d’inventaire
- RF 1961 7
Au catalogue
Sources
- Wikidata
- Image : Musée d'Orsay — Gustave Moreau · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Dans la vie de Gustave Moreau
La vie entière1881–1898
An increasingly reclusive life
In his later years Moreau withdrew increasingly from society: he did not exhibit at the Salon, refused to exhibit abroad, rarely let visitors into his studio and turned down prestigious offers, including the Les XX exhibition in Brussels (1887) and decorations for the Sorbonne (1891). He was exceptionally erudite, with a personal library of over 1,600 volumes, and lived fairly modestly; Degas described him as a hermit who knows what time the trains leave.
1888–1898 · Lieu de travail
Paris
28 March 1890
The death of Alexandrine Dureux
Alexandrine Dureux died on 28 March 1890 after five months of deteriorating health, and Moreau was at her bedside. He bought back from her heirs the watercolours he had given her and some furniture, placing them in a room of his house in her memory, and designed her tombstone himself, engraved with their interlaced initials. Both deaths reinforced his isolation, and his work took on an even greater melancholic edge.
October 1891 – January 1892
Takes over Delaunay’s studio at the École des Beaux-Arts
On his deathbed Élie Delaunay asked Moreau to succeed him and direct one of the school’s main ateliers. Moreau reluctantly took the class on a temporary basis in October 1891, but in January 1892, at the age of sixty-five, he accepted the appointment of professor and atelier director.
1891–1898
Moreau’s atelier: about 125 students
Between 1891 and 1898 about 125 students passed through Moreau’s studio, and his class attracted the most progressive and adventurous of them. He made no attempt to impose his views, encouraged their own ideas, invited them to his home on Sunday afternoons (though not into his studio) and took them to the Louvre, unheard of at the École; Matisse called showing them the way to the museum an almost revolutionary attitude. Georges Rouault, already a student at the École, was quickly recognised by Moreau as an exceptional talent.
1891–1898
Matisse accepted without an examination: the making of the Fauves
Matisse had been denied admission to the École des Beaux-Arts, but Moreau saw him drawing in the school’s public courtyard and invited him to join his class, exempting him from the entrance examination. Matisse soon became the central figure among a faction of students in Moreau’s studio that developed into the Fauves.
