A Wondrous Museum

GUSTAVE MOREAU MUSEUM

PARIS

Earlier ARTINFO posted a question about "what's your favorite museum?" and immediately I thought of the Guggenheim. The question though kept lingering and I started thinking of my New Year weekend in Paris. Our rocking L'Amour Hotel was luckily very close to the Gustave Moreau Museum so I was fortunate enough to get a taste of this wondrous museum.

Gustave Moreau was a symbolist painter that turned his home into a museum in 1903, and he kept his still standing apartment on the first floor.

The most remarkable about this museum is the perfect disorder, the paintings are basically on top of each other fighting to be noticed, and the winding stairs leaves me speechless! 

Autoportret (1850)

Gustave Moreau (1826-1898)

The Apparition (1874-5)

Galatea (1880)

Andre Breton Supposedly said about his discovery of the museum at age 16:

"Influenced forever my idea of love"

La Toilette (ca 1885)

Andre Breton was also one who defended the artist when he was being scorned. But Moreau is respectably seen as a mentor to the Fauves group, led by Matisse. He is also recognized as a predecessor of Surrealism.

Moreau said, referring to the Fauves;

"I am the bridge over which some of you will go."

Matisse said about Moreau:

"He didn't set his pupils on the right road, he took them off it. He made them uneasy.... He didn't show us how to paint; he roused our imagination"

& so he is, Moreau is still rousing my imagination:)

With Love Kristin