The Chimera by Gustave Moreau Poster

The Chimera (La Chimere) by Gustave Moreau, 1867, is an oil on canvas painting based on sources from classical antiquity, such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses, of a female figure grappling at a winged chimera, a mythological beast composed of the parts of several creatures. In Moreau’s interpretation, the Chimera is part winged bird, part horse, part lion, and has the face and torso of a man. Such subjects from ancient mythology would preoccupy Moreau from his beginnings in the French Romantic and neo-Classical era through the Symbolist movement at the end of the 19th century. 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.