Sorry, folks – my mind was so blown by my visit to the Moreau Museum that I forgot to write about it. But it’s fitting to post a review on the same day as the Pasteur Museum, since both are museums dedicated to one man’s life and work, located in that man’s last living space. The difference is that Moreau knew that he would be donating his house as a museum after his death, and spent the last years of his life arranging it as a tribute to himself – e.g., arranging portraits of his ancestors in family-tree order on every available wall surface in his bedroom. Creeeepy.
The core of the museum is in the two floors of studio space, which are filled with cases of drawings and, on the walls, oils sketches and paintings. If you like his style, you’ll have a lot of fun (and his work looks a lot better in person than in pictures). Moreau is called a “symbolist” artist, but I would describe him as “educated psychedelic” – a mixture of Christian imagery with classical lore with sexy androgyny with blood with Indian architecture with hot demons, all rendered in shimmering paint and obsessive drawn details. In short: full-on crazy-pants (a quality which may extend to the guards as well – one of them was polishing his shoes while I was there, complete with shoe polish tins, sponges, and brushes).
