The Chimera

The Chimera (1867) at the Fogg Museum depicts the hybrid beast of Greek mythology — lion's head, goat's body, serpent's tail — that was slain by Bellerophon mounted on the winged horse Pegasus. Moreau's treatment focuses on the monster itself rather than the heroic combat, consistent with his career-long interest in hybrid, liminal beings that existed at the boundary between orders of nature. The Chimera as subject allowed him to explore the visual possibilities of a composite creature with the ornamental richness he brought to all his subjects. By 1867, his mythological imagination was fully developed, and the Chimera offered a subject where conventional narrative could give way to a meditation on transformation, the mixing of species, and the underlying unity of monstrous and divine creation.

The Chimera's three-part animal body requires Moreau to render the textural differences of lion mane, goat coat, and serpent scales within a single coherent creature. The transitional zones between animal types are handled with the inventive ornamental detail that suited such hybrid subjects.