Oedipus And The Sphinx Analysis

The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds some of the most influential and historic art work. One famous painting, Oedipus and the Sphinx by Gustave Moreau was created in 1864. Gustave Moreau was a French painter born on April 6, 1826 and died on April 18, 1898. His painting, Oedipus and the Sphinx is 6′ 9″ x 3′ 5″ in dimension and the medium used was oil paint on canvas. His famous painting was first exhibited at the French Salon of 1864 and has became a successful piece to this day and was the start to Moreau’s reputation.
Gustave Moreau was born in Paris during the Symbolism era, which was a late 19th-century art movement of French, Russian, and Belgian art. His father, Louis Jean Marie Moreau, an architect with a talent for drawing, influenced Gustave’s interest in art. In his early twenties, Moreau began studying under Francois-Edouard Picot, who was a talented painter of mythological, religious, and historical themes. However, his most inspirational mentor, Theodore Chasseriau, was a significant influence to Gustave’s subject and style of art. To further …show more content…
Oedipus was the mythical Greek king of Thebes while Sphinx was an evil mythical creature with the head of a human female, the body of a lion, and the wings of a bird. Sphinx would ask a riddle to passengers at the crossroads between Thebes and Delphi and those who only answered correctly would pass while others would receive a devastating consequence. The foreground of the piece depicts this tragedy as a man is observed to have fallen in a dark abyss. The midground shows the interaction of the handsome Oedipus and the beautiful Sphinx staring at one another. The background shows a long path boarded with rocky, brown cliffs as tall as the dark, gloomy skies on the top of the painting. The whole context of the art piece was painted with a conceptual