The 10 Year Plan: Museums in Paris: Musée Gustave Moreau

Recently, we visited an art museum in the 9th arrondissement, the Musée Gustave Moreau.

Moreau was a 19th century French painter known for his Symbolist style of painting, which used mythological and dream imagery as its motif.

From Musee-Moreau.fr

What makes the museum interesting is that the museum itself is the house where Moreau spent his adult life along with his parents. When Moreau died in 1898, the house was preserved largely as he left it, and a few years later it was opened as a museum. Moreau, in fact, wanted the house to become a "museum-house" featuring his artwork and he designed some of the rooms to serve as his studio and as galleries for his paintings. (You can read about Moreau's life by clicking here.)

Let's take a brief tour of the museum. The lower floors are where the well-to-do family lived. Several of the rooms are preserved just as they were, including the bedroom of Moreau's mother and Moreau's study. The walls of the rooms on the lower floors are covered from top to bottom with Moreau's paintings. He was a prolific painter; more than 6,000 works are displayed and stored in the museum. While touring the lower floors, we felt that the space was cramped and we were overwhelmed by the artwork (and clutter).

The upper floors, the 3rd and 4th floors, are a different story. Each floor consists of a single, large open room. They were specially designed by Moreau as an art studio with very high ceilings (about 15 feet) to accommodate his large format paintings. Moreau intended the rooms to serve as museum galleries after his death. The spaces are bright and awe-inspiring.

Musée Gustave Moreau: 3rd floor gallery

Below are two one of Moreau's large-format Symbolist paintings, the Return of the Argonauts (1891-1897) and the Triumph of Alexander the Great (1892).