グスタフ・モローから連なる現代美術の系譜の紹介。英文

The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

This is Jupiter and Semele, painted in 1895 by a French artist called Gustave Moreau. It might not look "modern", but Moreau influenced everybody from Picasso to Matisse to Dalí. Here's how Gustave Moreau invented modern art... pic.twitter.com/7Bk69jMu9d

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

How did modern art — from Surrealism to Cubism to Abstract Art — first appear? There was no single cause, of course. We could point to the impact of technology (especially photography), to the effects of the First World War, or to any number of socio-cultural changes... pic.twitter.com/9w5iTnQssl

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

...but one unlikely individual in particular had a colossal influence on what we now call modern art. His name was Gustave Moreau (1826-1898), who as a young painter was influenced by Romantic artists like Théodore Chassériau and Eugène Delacroix. pic.twitter.com/8OC2TVsQYr

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Moreau continued where Delacroix and Chassériau left off, pursuing their Romantic reaction against Science and Rationality to its conclusion: a total retreat inwards, away from the outside world. Moreau embraced emotion, dreams, mythology, and mysticism. pic.twitter.com/Uw8ZZIA4mc

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

And, stylistically, Moreau was very unconventional. He didn't adopt the smooth Neoclassical style of the Academy (like Bouguereau, left) or the gritty naturalism of the rebellious Realists (like Courbet, right). Instead, Moreau created a style all of his own. pic.twitter.com/AGuWTa4Ps2

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

He did retain an interest in Classical, Biblical, and Historical themes (like the Academy) and he continued to paint in a broadly "realistic" way. But he rejected both Academic conservatism and the politics of the Realists. Emotion and spirituality were what mattered to Moreau. pic.twitter.com/RzaPCLly2B

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

He painted familiar scenes — from history, the Bible, or Greco-Roman mythology — but he did so in ways they had never been painted before. Like The Infant Moses, from 1876, where the rich colours, dreamlike setting, and mystical atmosphere feel wholly non-Biblical. pic.twitter.com/lWBl6xinD1

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

And this is how Moreau became a precursor to Symbolism. Symbolism was an artistic movement (in painting, music, and literature) which swept Europe in the latter half of the 19th century. There was an "official" group of Symbolists, but it was a broad, continental movement. pic.twitter.com/kWs3lYLpw6

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Symbolism is defined not so much by a specific style (though there are similarities, as you can see, whether rich detail, vivid colours, mysterious subjects, or natural imagery) as by a mindset. Everything we see is a symbol for something else, an allusion to a feeling or idea. pic.twitter.com/XyY58Gy4Ok

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Moreau predated Symbolism, but he is perhaps the definitive Symbolist painter. He, like them, seemed to be responding to photography, technology, industrialisation, science, and the changing role of the artist by creating highly personal art that was difficult to understand. pic.twitter.com/gOUUAM0NPB

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

We can reel off the influences on Moreau, from Romanticism to the Renaissance and Persian to Byzantine art, but his style was something altogether new. As in Galatea, one of his last paintings, where gorgeous colours and obscure symbolism create a mysterious visual delight. pic.twitter.com/IFVl36f3Tz

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Moreau's art has been called decadent; we can see why. There is no obvious meaning here, and we are overwhelmed by the luxury of his pearly colours and jewel-like textures, where everything glitters and glows, as in Salome Dancing Before Herod. People asked: what's the point? pic.twitter.com/A5UKcE6rze

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

But the specific scenes Moreau depicted were less important than the emtions and ideas to which they alluded. To some extent Moreau's paintings don't "mean" anything; they are difficult to understand, and intentionally so. This is pure, mythical "feeling" expressed in paint. pic.twitter.com/F7JGkShlUE

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

For Moreau, colour and texture and pattern were of sufficient power to speak for themselves, regardless of what he was using them to portray. Such a belief has been, of course, crucial for many modern artists, who later resorted to colour and pattern and texture alone. pic.twitter.com/7fswA6khgl

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Moreau once explained his artistic philosophy: "I believe neither in what I touch nor what I see. I only believe in what I do not see, and solely in what I feel." That is the heart of Symbolism; what we see is a dreamlike interpretation of something else. This is not reality. pic.twitter.com/m7eZgA0Ggo

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Moreau made some other revealing comments about his art, nowhere more so than here, where he explained his obsession with "the abstract". He wanted to express "the motions of the soul and mind" in "pure plastic art", plastic here simply referring to visual art. pic.twitter.com/8U8FcEFEds

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

So we can see how Moreau was a precursor to modern art — his work is subtly abstract and difficult to understand. In Deianira, from 1878, we do not see Deianira; the mythology is a mask; these rich colours were, for Moreau, an allusion to some impenetrable spiritual feeling. pic.twitter.com/VVHaZZstcK

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Moreau was largely successful with the public and the critics, and even won several prizes at the Parisian art salons. But he had left the Academy in 1849 and remained something of an eccentric outsider, growing ever more strange, Symbolist, and hermetic as the years wore on. pic.twitter.com/Xo8A5gGWxp

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

But, in 1891, the aged Moreau was appointed as a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. This wasn't without controversy, given Moreau's highly idiosyncratic style, but he proved one of the academy's most popular (and influential) teachers. pic.twitter.com/v5rGQI24da

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Who were his students? The most famous was Henri Matisse, who would go on to become one of the most important and influential figures in all of modern art. These students worshipped Moreau, not so much for his paintings as for his *approach* to art, and for his teaching methods. pic.twitter.com/QUsFdZX1XD

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Moreau's open-mindedness, originality, love of abstraction, emotion, colour, and experimentation, fostered an environment of wild creativity. Appearances can be deceiving, but the art of Moreau has more in common the famous Snail of Henri Matisse than we might think. pic.twitter.com/A5mS1ogLB0

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

But the link between Moreau and modern art became even clearer after his death in 1898. He had been a prolific artist, producing something like 15,000 works (from major paintings to simple sketches) and in his will bequeathed them all (along with his house) to the nation. pic.twitter.com/jZpNQYT0VC

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

In his personal collection were hundreds of previously unseen sketches and paintings, many of them almost entirely abstract experiments in colour and shape. It seems Moreau had completed his inwards journey in private; this was the logical conclusion of Symbolism. pic.twitter.com/n8HxFqhi2a

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Moreau also directly influenced Surrealism — the official founder of the Surrealist movement, André Breton, said so. It's easy to see why. The weird, dreamlike world of allusions that define Moreau's work has much in common with the likes of Dalí and co. pic.twitter.com/LMkAQNH5ln

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

One of Moreau's students once said this: "The fires of insurrection have been lit: all the rebels... have gathered under the shield of Gustave Moreau." And it was true. The insurrection that is modern art can be traced, at least in part, to the brilliant mind of this man. pic.twitter.com/WFNUZtWdwg

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