Saint Cecilia 1885 - 1900

Curator: Look at this piece. Gustave Moreau's "Saint Cecilia," likely created between 1885 and 1900, now residing here at The Met. A watercolor, I believe? Editor: Oh, a dream. My first thought? Serenity tinged with melancholy. The colors are muted, but the gold halo and harp pop. There's a lovely sadness to it. Curator: Yes, and Moreau was deeply immersed in Symbolism, wasn’t he? Cecilia, the patron saint of music, is often portrayed playing the organ, but here she's depicted with a harp. This subtle shift opens up interesting interpretations. Perhaps the harp's associations with antiquity appealed to Moreau's interests in historical myth and archetype? Editor: It feels far more intimate this way. The organ is so… public. The harp suggests private devotion, almost a secret language with the divine. You can almost hear a quiet melody echoing in the stillness of that landscape. What's with the setting though, leaning against what looks like a rough tree trunk with one lily and a lake in the background. It feels both earthly and ethereal. Curator: Moreau frequently employed very particular visual vocabulary to speak to larger ideas. Note the positioning of the crescent moon as well. The lily connects Cecilia to innocence and purity, and to rebirth as it also the symbol of Resurrection. That tree and the rocks are reminiscent of natural sacred spaces like holy wells. Moreau’s personal language of forms certainly invites meditation on mortality and the transcendent. Editor: Absolutely. She's grounded but reaching for something beyond, don't you think? That upward gaze. It all creates a wonderful tension. It makes me wonder if she’s actually playing the harp or merely embracing it to produce an inaudible vibration in an otherworldly fashion. I find this work deeply affecting, almost mystical in the subtlety of the color palette that gives form to the artist's interiority. Curator: I see her act of contemplation reflecting that Symbolist ambition to evoke subjective realities of emotion and experience. Moreau certainly achieved a timeless quality, which continues to affect modern audiences. Editor: It certainly does, I love the chance this has given me to escape to a secret place. Curator: For me, the synthesis of musical harmony and visual symbol makes me feel I know just a little bit more about the long evolution of shared memory.