Art Criticism - The State University of New York

The subtitle Satanic Decameron evokes associations of evil, perdition, and
damnation. This work is the artistic apotheosis of the attitude toward women
prevalent among writers such as Baudelaire, Alfred de Vigny, Mallarme, Haubert,
and Huysmans, and of course among their avid progeny, the decadent aesthetes,
personified in the character of des Esseintes. The following is an excerpt
of Moreau's written accompaniment for The Chimeras:
This island of fantastic dreams encloses all forms of passion, fantasy
and caprice in the woman, woman in her primary essence, the unconscious
being fond of the unknown, the mysterious, in love with evil in the form of a
perverse and diabolic seduction ... These are the theories of damned queens
who have just left the serpent; these are beings in which the soul is abolished,
waiting at the side of the road for the lewd goat mounted by Luxury to adorn
his passage: isolated beings ... Women astride Chimeras, who carry them into
space where they fall again, lost in horror and vertigo . .13
The male figure, on the other hand, receives a very different treatment
in Moreau's hands. Beauty is perhaps his most distinctive quality. This is not
the conventional handsome muscular beauty, the grace qf perfection so praised
by Giorgio Vasari, but a beauty more akin to that associated with the female.
Moreau's males have long flowing locks and slender, often frail physiques.
The skin is clean and unblemished and usually devoid of facial or bodily hair.
Indeed, the gender ambiguity common in Moreau's work makes it often quite
difficult to differentiate the male from the female characters, a most prominent
example being Jason (1863-65). The androgynous nature of the male figure in
this painting is prevalent throughout most of Moreau's work and is generally
characterized by young adolescents with pouting lips and a classical Greek
sensuality and smoothness of line. The choice of the adolescent as opposed
to the mature figure serves to increase the ambiguous nature of the figures.
In his images of the male, Moreau often juxtaposes a beautiful face
with a muscular heroic body, as in Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra (1869-
76). Hercules is portrayed with long flowing hair, chiseled cheekbones, and a
dainty nose, but his muscular anatomy is proof of his virility and of his ability
to slay the many-headed hydra. The figure of Jupiter in Jupiter and Semele
(1889-95) is God-like in stature and bearing, but there is a certain petulance in
his stare and he is not without beauty and allure. He is the usual young male
with dark flowing hair and large liquid oval eyes. According to myth, Semele
persuaded Jupiter to reveal himself to her. Instantaneously with the first glimpse
of his god-like figure, she is killed. Jupiter incubated their embryonic child
Bacchus in his thigh until his birth. In the painting, Jupiter holds in his hand a
lotus flower, a Hindu symbol of fertility. This may represent Moreau's interpretation
of Jupiter as the incarnation of sexual duality, thus implying a profound
blurring of sexual roles.
As if to emphasize their bodily beauty, the male figures are often
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Art Criticism