Hesiod and the Muse

1881–1898

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 · Luogo di lavoro

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.