Fan 1855 - 1880

This is Edouard Moreau's fan made from gouache, watercolor, and mother-of-pearl. Immediately, one notices the division between the pictorial upper half, and the mother-of-pearl lower half; a tension between representation and pure form. The upper portion presents a scene of figures inhabiting a turquoise seascape, bordered by a decorative frame. Moreau creates a visual hierarchy, placing a standing female figure at the composition's apex, drawing the eye upward. But the lower portion presents an abstract pattern in a radial arrangement. Here, light reflects off the pearlescent surface, disrupting any clear semiotic reading. The fan exists in the space between functionality and ornamentation, between representation and abstraction, and between a clear, legible narrative, and an opaque surface. These formal qualities challenge us to consider the work as more than mere decoration, but as a site of complex visual interplay. It is a work in which form and function create new meaning and aesthetic experience.