Gustave Moreau French, 1826-1898

Executed in 1879 the present work is the only finished watercolour Moreau made of this subject.

La Chimère is one of Moreau’s most famous compositions. He first explored the subject in a drawing of 1856 (fig. 1). In 1858, during a sojourn in Italy, he executed a watercolour sketch, which is now in the collection of the Musée Gustave Moreau. The Chimera motif then appeared again with minor alterations in two small oil paintings and an ink wash of 1867 (see Mathieu, 1976, p. 303, nos. 88-90).

Repeating or returning to a composition was a common practice for Moreau, who continually sought to improve his work. In 1879 the art critic and writer Ernest Chesnau published a novel entitled La Chimère, which was inspired by Moreau’s painting of 1867, and dedicated to the artist. An etching of this work served as the frontispiece for Chesnau’s novel – it is likely that this re-awakened Moreau’s interest in, and triggered his re-evaluation of this particular composition.

In the 1870s Moreau turned increasingly to watercolour, a medium in which he found scope for the free play of his gifts as a colourist and his powers of invention. In fact, in his lifetime Moreau was appreciated as much for his bold and fluid watercolours as for his paintings, which were sometimes considered overly elaborate and stiff in execution. Moreau mainly used watercolour as a medium to explore the potential of colour. The striking colour harmonies and in particular the exquisite deep blue of the sky and rich red of the woman’s sash lend this work a striking freshness, which is not to be found in the oil paintings.

The importance Moreau placed on colour becomes obvious from his notes on the subject: 'Just as a dream is situated in a suitably coloured atmosphere, so a concept, when it becomes a composition, needs to move in a fittingly coloured setting. There is obviously one particular colour attributed to some part of the picture which becomes a key and governs the other parts. All the figures, their arrangement in relation to one another, the landscape or interior which serves them as background or horizon, their clothes, everything about them in fact must serve to illuminate the general idea and wear its original colour, its livery so to speak.' (Gustave Moreau, unpublished notes, quoted in Philippe Julian, Dreamers of Decadence, London, 1971, p. 257).

Whereas most nineteenth-century painters used watercolour for preparatory sketches, Moreau considered them as finished and complete compositions in their own right.  Contrary to the majority of painters at the time, he also made a point of exhibiting his watercolours at the annual Paris Salon. His main patrons for this genre were Antoni Roux who commissioned sixty-four watercolours illustrating La Fontaine’s fables from him, and Charles Hayem, the first owner of the present water colour, who acquired many of  Moreau’s principal works. In 1886 Moreau held a major exhibition of watercolours at the Galerie Goupil – this was to be the only comprehensive retrospective of his work during his lifetime.

Fig. 1, Gustave Moreau, La Chimère, pencil on paper, Private Collection