Song of Songs by Gustave Moreau

The watercolor painting Song of Songs by Gustave Moreau depicts a figure from the biblical Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon. A tall female figure in exotic, intricately detailed and colourful drapery stands against the backdrop of a massive column and sunset landscape, the object of the Bible’s famous cycle of poetry. Gustave Moreau exhibited with great success in the late 19th century French Salon, and later became a professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. His noteworthy students included the Modernist Fauve painters Henri Matisse, Albert Marquet, and Georges Rouault. Moreau’s work has much in common with classical 19th century French painters such as Ingres and Delacroix, but he is usually considered part of the French Symbolist movement for his literary, archaic classical style and religious and mythological subject matter.