Gustave Moreau - Galatea

• Title: Galatea
• Artist: Gustave Moreau (1826-1898)
• Date: c. 1880
• Medium: Oil on wood panel
• Dimensions: 86 x 66 cm

The subject of this painting has been taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses which tells the story of the Cyclops Polyphemus' jealousy over Galatea's love for the shepherd Acis. Gustave Moreau's interest in the theme was revealed by two photographs that he hung in his dining room- one of Raphael's "Triumph of Galatea" and the other of Sebastiano del Piombo's "Polyphemus".

In this painting, Moreau gave a personal representation of the story concentrating on the opposition between the beauty and the beast, being prisoner of one's jealousy versus being free thanks to one's purity. Despite Galatea being hiding in a cave, it is Polyphemus who looks as if he were a prisoner of that cave, with the zoom on him and his huge hands.