Galatea, Symbolist Art by Gustave Moreau

Galatea by French painter Gustave Moreau depicts the scene from Ovid's Metamorphoses of the jealousy of the Cyclops Polyphemus as the woman Galatea falls in love with a shepherd, Acis. In this intricately detailed watercolor, the giant Cyclops gazes in brooding melancholy upon the pale, sleeping Galatea, unable to reach her. Gustave Moreau exhibited with great success in the late 19th century French Salon, and later became an important professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. His noteworthy students included the Modernist Fauve painters 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 archaic classical style and literary, religious and mythological subject matter.