Tip: move over the painting to use the lens.
Oedipus and the Sphinx
Gustave Moreau · 1864
- Artist
- Gustave Moreau French, Paris 1826–1898 Paris
- Date
- 1864
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Size
- 81 1/4 × 41 1/4 in. (206.4 × 104.8 cm)
- Where to see it
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Bequest of William H. Herriman, 1920 · CC0 Public Domain · The Met · see it at the museum ↗
Slow Look
- The whole picture Let your eyes wander. Where do they want to rest?
- The light Find the brightest spot. What is it showing you?
- The edges Look at what is half cut off at the borders.
- One small detail Choose one tiny thing and stay with it for a while.
- The whole picture again Step back. Has it changed for you?
About Gustave Moreau
Gustave Moreau was a French artist and an important figure in the Symbolist movement. Jean Cassou called him "the Symbolist painter par excellence". He was an influential forerunner of symbolism in the visual arts in the 1860s, and at the height of the symbolist movement in the 1890s, he was among the most significant painters. Art historian Robert Delevoy wrote that Moreau "brought symbolist polyvalence to its highest point in Jupiter and Semele." He was a prolific artist who produced over 15,000 paintings, watercolors, and drawings. Moreau painted allegories and traditional biblical and myth
What do you see?
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