“Galatea”
Whimsy and fantasy abound in this piece.
“Galatea” is a mythical watercolor, gouache, ink, and tempera on cardboard painting by the French symbolist, Gustave Moreau. It was painted in 1896, just two years before he died. Moreau is considered one of the first Symbolist artists and many credit him as being the one who actually started the movement.
This piece depicts a part of the story from Ovid’s Metamorphoses in which the cyclops, Polyphemus, suffers an unrequited love for the Nereid sea nymph, Galatea. Galatea instead loves the shepherd, Acis, and is beyond his reach. Galatea rests on a bed of seaweed while the two figures are surrounded by marine flowering plants.
The story reads, “Here is a terrible giant who loves a beautiful nymph”. The paleness of Galatea’s reclining body, which represents the unattainable, contrasts beautifully with the dark coloring of forlorn Polyphemus who blends in with the background.
This is the second piece Moreau did of this subject, the first being an oil on wood painting from 1880. Moreau was very fond of this myth and had two photographs of works by other artists depicting this same subject hanging in his living room. These include Raphael’s “Triumph of Galatea” and Sebastiano del Piombo’s “Polyphemus”.
“Galatea” is currently in the collections of the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, Spain.
For more on Gustave Moreau, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
