Gustave Moreau's “La Vie de l'humanité”: Orpheus in the Context of Religious Syncretism, Universal Histories, and Occultism

Abstract

The figure of Orpheus dominates the work of Gustave Moreau. La Vie de l'humanite (Fig. 1) is paradigmatic of Moreau's aesthetic: the significance of Orpheus and the mingling of pagan myth and Biblical story are typical both of the artist's fascination with the priestly poet-initiate and of his preoccupation with religious and cultural syncretism.