Greece to Paris, 530 BCE–1890

Gustave Moreau

Oedipus and the Sphinx

1864

Oil on canvas, 81 1/4 × 41 1/4 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Gustave Moreau (French, 1826–1898). Look at the surface detail: the wings, the jewels and the urn are picked out feather by feather and bead by bead.

Look at

• Every edge is sharp, from the wing tips to the red cord of beads around the creature's chest.
• The strokes are tiny and build up ornament rather than texture.
• The two heads are locked eye to eye at the top of a tall, narrow canvas, which squeezes the drama into a vertical.
• The background rocks are cool grey-blue, so the gold-brown body and the pale flesh come forward.

• The same riddle scene as two slides back, now a close standoff; shown at the Paris Salon of 1864.

Image: Wikimedia Commons (CC0 file from The Met's Open Access release) · CC0