Galatea

The Salon of 1880 was the last time Gustave Moreau showed his work at the official Paris exhibition, though he lived and painted for another 18 years. He sent two pictures, a Helen of Troy and this Galatea, and critics admitted they could hardly find words for them. The story comes from the Metamorphoses of Ovid, the Roman poet. The sea nymph Galatea is loved by the Cyclops Polyphemus, a giant, and she does not love him back. Moreau sets her in a sea grotto, pale and drowsy, flowers in her hair, among corals, sea plants and tiny creatures painted in minute detail. The giant looms out of the rocks behind her, gazing down at her. The Musée d'Orsay bought the panel in 1997, with the help of Japanese sponsors brought together by the newspaper Nikkei.