Gustave Moreau: the fables

Uittreksel

Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) is one of the most brilliant and enigmatic artists associated with the French Symbolist movement This book accompanies an exhibition of some of the most extraordinary works he ever made unseen in public for over a century. Moreau's watercolours of the 'Fables' of Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695) were created between 1879 and 1885 for the art collector Antony Roux and their stylistic range encompasses historicism and the picturesque orientalist fantasies and nearabstract chromatic experiments They were exhibited to great acclaim in Paris in the 1880s and in London in 1886 where critics compared the artist to Edward BurneJones One critic commented on Moreau's ' keen apprehension of the weird'. There were originally 64 works in the series which was subsequently acquired by Miriam Alexandrine de Rothschild (1884-1965) but nearly half were lost during the Nazi era The surviving works have not been exhibited since 1906 and they have only ever been published in black and white This book is the first to reproduce them in colour many shown actual size Created at the height of the French 19thcentury revival of watercolour the variety of subject matter and technique their colouristic effects and the sophistication of Moreau's storytelling will be a revelation to readers. Exhibition: Waddesdon Manor Buckinghamshire, UK (11-07/01-11-2020), Musée National Gustave Moreau Paris France (from 11-2020).