Life of Humanity

Painted in 1886, Life of Humanity is a work by Gustave Moreau, now in the collection of Musée Gustave Moreau, that reflects the artistic concerns of the late 19th century — an era of fundamental transformation in both the methods and purposes of European and American painting. Gustave Moreau was the founding father of French Symbolism and a pivotal teacher whose studio produced Henri Matisse, Georges Rouault, and Albert Marquet. His elaborate mythological paintings — Salome, Hercules, Galatea, Oedipus — translate ancient subjects into psychological dramas of desire, power, and fate, rendered in surfaces of extraordinary jeweled richness.

Moreau built his mythological subjects with richly jeweled surfaces, layering glazes and textured passages to create encrusted, almost mosaic-like effects. His palette is deliberately archaic and sumptuous — deep carmines, gold, Byzantine blues.