0989Semele_Moreau

VictorianWeb.org
Musée Gustave Moreau
Ovid Met. 3.259-315

Gustave Moreau, "Jupiter and Semele," 1895, Musée Gustave Moreau, Paris, Cat. 95.

Moreau is said to have considered this work his masterpiece, though in his lifetime it was never shown in public exhibition. (ML 8th edition Color Plate 18)

Jupiter commands a riotously colorful eastern kingdom, "like an Indian Rajah"; Semele has been struck by his presence but is not yet dead. The throngs of the Underworld await her.

Moreau also offered thoughts on how Semele's liebestod, her having been "penetrated by the divine effluence," results in her "regeneration", her purification, and her "consecration." (See undocumented citation at VictorianWeb.org.) Further: "a mort terrestre et l'apothéose dans l'immortalité. Le grand mystère accompli, toute la nature est imprégnée d'idéal et de divin, tout se transforme. C'est un hymne à la divinité" Moreau at museum site.

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1400 – 1990’s, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.