The Apparition [Salome and the Head of John the Baptist].
Title
The Apparition [Salome and the Head of John the Baptist] .
Creator
Moreau, Gustave (French painter, 1826-1898)
Date
1876?
Cultural Context
French European Western European
Style/Period
Symbolist Neo-Romantic
Subject
Biblical events Women Dancers Nudes Pointing fingers Supernatural Light Saints Dead persons Heads (Anatomy) Floating Blood Decapitations Columns Arches
Description
"As early as 1876 , in the ornate , somewhat epicene sensuality of The Apparition , Moreau summarized many of the concepts that linked the melancholy beauty of the Pre-Raphaelites with his own native poetic tradition epitomized by Baudelaire's femme damnée , described in The Flowers of Evil […] . Moreau's painting combines an hallucinatory mythic subject matter with the conscious attempt to achieve his own stated objectives of a 'beauty of inertia ' and a 'necessary richness ' of pictorial effect . His spangled , jeweled color and voluptuous imagery sent [Joris-Karl] Huysmans into a paroxysm of rhapsodic description in Against Nature [À Rebours] . The elaborate technique of loaded paint application , tumescent forms , and erotic fantasies conspires to lend his mythic scenes the quality of mystery and scandal admired by succeeding Symbolist poets and painters . Moreau introduced into the Paris art world the visual image of pitiless womanhood , the first in a long line of sadistic females in art […] . The prototype can be regarded as the reigning goddess of the Decadents , a bizarre and voluptuous image , dominated by the twin forces of eroticism and mysticism. " (Excerpt , pp . 36-37)
People Pictured
Salome (Biblical figure) John, the Baptist, Saint
Material
Oil on canvas Oil paint (pigmented coating) Paint Canvas
Measurements
12 1/2 x 19 3/8"
Technique
Oil painting (technique) Painting (image-making)
Work Type
Oil paintings Paintings
Repository
Musée Gustave Moreau (Paris, France)
Source
Hunter, Sam, John Jacobus, and Daniel Wheeler. Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture. 3rd rev ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2000. (p.34, fig.35).
Rights
Reproduced in Hunter courtesy: Musée Moreau, Paris; Hunter, Modern Art: Copyright © 2000 The Vendome Press, New York. Further, it should be noted that many of the art works reproduced in this volume are subject to claims of copyright in the United States and throughout the world, particularly for those artists represented by ADAGP and SPADEM, both located in Paris and exclusively represented in the United States by Artists Rights Society, New York. For other artists, mainly American, the copyright agent is VAGA, New York.
Digital Publisher
University of Louisville Department of Fine Arts/Allen R. Hite Art Institute Visual Resources Center
Format
image/jpeg
Digital File Name
VRC 292-30.jpg
Rating
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