About this work
*Oedipus and the Sphinx* locks two figures in a confrontation that feels less like a story than a staring contest — one with existential stakes.
In a rocky mountain pass, a heroic male nude faces a creature with the head and bare breasts of a woman, the ornate blue feathered wings of a bird, the clawed arms and legs of a lion, and the tail of a serpent.
Unlike Ingres' version, where Oedipus appears as the dominant figure with the Sphinx on the defensive, in Moreau's version the Sphinx is on the offensive, clawing at Oedipus — whose victory in the encounter does not yet seem assured. The tension is held in a near-vertical composition: two bodies pressed close together, eyes locked, the outcome suspended. The Sphinx's strong body is set against Oedipus's lithe frame, and her wings, in gauzy, lilac-tinged grays, echo his upturned arm, bent to clasp his crimson lance. The foreground offers a grimmer register: a hand and a foot of a cadaver, and the crown of a king and the laurel wreath of a hero who failed to answer the riddle correctly. The symbolic layering extends further — behind Oedipus is a bay tree sacred to Apollo, representing man's highest achievements; behind the Sphinx is a fig tree, a traditional symbol of sin; and a small polychrome column at the right is topped by a cinerary urn symbolising death, above which a butterfly represents the soul, while a snake ascending the column evokes both death and sin.
Three times the aspiring Moreau had tried to turn his new concept for history painting into a Salon canvas and had to abandon the effort. Over the winter of 1863–64 he made a fourth attempt — and the resulting painting took the Salon by storm, establishing his reputation and career.
One critic commented that "if the Salon of 1864 is retrieved from discredit, it is thanks to *Oedipus and the Sphinx*."
In this work Moreau deliberately rejects the realism and naturalism in vogue in mid-nineteenth-century France, instead adopting a deliberately archaic painting style and mythological subject matter.
Critics of the 1860s identified Moreau as an artist who reshaped the very scope of history painting; rather than presenting dramatic interaction among figures, he pursued what has been described as "contemplative immobility."
The influence of Italian Renaissance master Andrea Mantegna has also been detected in the work.
The painting was first sold by the artist in 1864 to Prince Napoléon Bonaparte, who paid a full 8,000
