Editing Gustave Moreau (section)

===Education and early career (1826–1856)===
[[File:Louis Moreau (architecte).jpg|thumb|left|130px|''Louis Moreau'' ({{Circa|1850}}), oil on canvas, 45 x 31 cm., Musée Gustave Moreau]]
[[File:Moreau - Portrait de Pauline Moreau, mère de l'artiste, Inv. 15110 (cropped).jpg|thumb|130px|''Pauline Moreau'' (no date), oil on canvas, Musée Gustave Moreau]]

Gustave Moreau was born in Paris, into a cultured, upper-middle-class family. His father, Louis Jean Marie Moreau (1790–1862), was an architect, and his mother, née Adèle Pauline Desmoutier (1802–1884) was a musician. During a turbulent period in French history his father worked for the city of Paris, but being of liberal leanings, he was at times dismissed and later reinstated from various offices as powers shifted. The family lived in [[Vesoul]], France from 1827 to 1830. After the [[July Revolution]] of 1830, he was appointed highway commissioner for the city of Paris. Although the office was not highly revered, his duties were more varied than the title suggests and he remained there until he retired in 1858. As a child Moreau was of frail health. Beginning at about the age of eight, he started drawing incessantly. In 1837 he began attending the Collège Rollin ([[Collège-lycée Jacques-Decour]]) in Paris as a boarder, but in 1840 when his older sister died at the age of 13, he was withdrawn from the school and lived a somewhat sheltered life with his parents. His father encouraged and supported his artistic tendencies but was adamant that he received a solid classical education. Moreau learned Greek, Latin, and read both French and classical literature in his father's rather substantial library. He learned piano and was a very good tenor. In 1841 he visited Italy with his mother and relatives, where he filled a 60-page album with drawings.<ref name="Mathieu (1994)" />{{rp|13–16 pp.}}

Visiting museums and galleries in Italy profoundly impressed Moreau and influenced his resolution to pursue a career as an artist. Upon returning in 1841 he started attending a drawing studio in the evenings. In 1844 he entered the private studio of [[François-Édouard Picot]], a member of the [[École des Beaux-Arts]], who offered classes to aspiring young artists to prepare for the entrance examinations at the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1846 Moreau was admitted to Picot's formal class at the École des Beaux-Arts. Moreau had grand aspirations of winning the prestigious [[Grand Prix de Rome]], but when he failed to make the final rounds in 1848 and 1849 he left the École des Beaux-Arts prematurely. His style soon drifted away from those favored by the academy, but many of the basic Beaux-Arts methods and concepts he learned would remain with him for the rest of his life, as would his commitment to [[history painting]].<ref name="Mathieu (1994)" />{{rp|17–20 p.}}<ref name="Selz (1979)" />{{rp| 6, 8 pp.}}<ref name="Gustave Moreau: His Life and Work">{{cite book|last1=Paladilhe|first1=Jean|title=Gustave Moreau: His Life and Work|url=https://archive.org/details/gustavemoreau0000pala|url-access=registration|date=1972|publisher=Praeger Publishers|lccn=71-151833}}</ref>

[[File:The Suitors by Gustave Moreau (1852-1853).jpg|thumb|280px|''The Suitors'' [unfinished] (1852-1896), 385 x 343&nbsp;cm., Musée Gustave Moreau]]

Moreau spent his time copying paintings in the [[Louvre]] and was soon drawn to [[romanticism]]. Two contemporary artists he greatly admired were [[Eugène Delacroix]] and [[Théodore Chassériau]], both of whom lived and worked in his neighborhood. Chassériau had entered the private studio of the great [[Neoclassicism|Neoclassical]] painter [[Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres]] at the age of ten and later spent time with Ingres at the [[French Academy in Rome]], but in his late teens he turned away from Neoclassicism  to Delacroix and romanticism. Chassériau never attended the École des Beaux-Arts, but he was driven and hardworking and managed to establish a reputation for himself, securing commissions, and living a rather bohemian and sometimes turbulent life. Moreau developed a friendship with Chassériau, seven years his senior, and rented a studio near Chassériau's. He soon followed suit, becoming something of a dapper man about town during this period, attending the opera and theater, and even singing at the social gatherings he frequented. Anecdotal accounts say Moreau visited Delacroix's studio around 1850; he was 28 years older than Moreau, but there is little evidence of a relationship beyond that.<ref name="Mathieu (1994)" />{{rp|20–23 p.}}<ref name="Selz (1979)" />{{rp| 8, 25 pp.}}

Moreau's father bought a townhome at 14 rue de la Rochefoucauld in 1853, converting the top floor into a studio for Moreau, where he and his parents lived for the rest of their lives. Shortly before moving in, Moreau had started an ambitious canvas, "a scene of epic slaughter" based on an episode from the ''[[Odyssey]]'', titled ''The Suitors'' (1852–1896). He worked on the painting on and off for the rest of his life, even adding strips of canvas to enlarge the work to a monumental 3.85 x 3.43 meters, but it was still unfinished at the time of his death. Moreau began exhibiting his work with some regularity in the 1850s. He secured some commissions from the city for paintings with the help of his father. He participated in the [[Paris Salon]] for the first time in 1852, presenting a ''[[Pieta]]'' which was purchased by the state for 600 francs. In the Salon of 1853 he exhibited ''Darius Fleeing after the Battle of Arbela'' and ''[[Song of Songs]]'', both showing some influence of [[Chassériau]], and the latter bought by the state for 2,000 francs for the [[Dijon Museum]]. There was no Salon in 1854, although he received a commission from the state in 1854 for ''Athenians being Delivered to the Minotaur in the Cretan Labyrinth'' which was shown at the 1855 Paris World's Fair and purchased for 4,000 francs for the Bourg-en-Bresse Museum. After a few short weeks of declining health in 1856, Chassériau died at the age of 37. On 10 October 1856, Delacroix noted in his journal  "Funeral procession of poor Chassériau. I saw Dauzats, Diaz, and the young Moreau. I quite like him"<ref name="Mathieu (1994)" />{{rp|291 p.}} Moreau started work on ''The Young Man and Death'' in 1856, finished in 1865 and dedicated to Chassériau.<ref name="Mathieu (1994)" />{{rp|30–35, 291 pp.}}<ref name="Selz (1979)" />{{rp| 22–26 pp.}}