"The Apparition"

In composing the painting Moreau was channeling his reading in orientalist literature, and treatments of the Salome story by writers such as Gustave Flaubert, whose descriptions of the princess in Salammbô (1862) might have influenced Moreau's choice of robes and head-dress. Representations of this archetypal 'femme fatale' in early Renaissance painting, and by contemporary painters such as Jean-Léon Gérôme and Henri Regnault, were probably also points of reference. Moreau enriched this meshwork of allusions with references to Indian and Asian art, dress and architecture and his characteristic surfeit of strange symbolic detail - notably in the weird iconography of Salome's jewellery - to generate the kind of mysterious, exotic mood typical of Symbolist painting. 

The mystery of the scene is enhanced by elements of the formal composition, particularly the curious posture of the anti-heroine, which at once suggests her mid-dance and in a position of priestly stasis. The rest of the scene is populated by grave, static figures, which, in combination with the diverse cultural sources for the setting, adds to that mysterious sense so often conveyed by Moreau's painting that the scene depicted lies outside narrative history and linear time. The choice of watercolor was idiosyncratic but revelatory, allowing Moreau to portray features such as the dripping blood with mimetic accuracy.

This painting marks a movement away from the large, centrally placed figures of Moreau's first mature works such as, instead placing a larger number of small figures within a richly detailed architectural setting, an arrangement characteristic of his middle period. Once again, male and female protagonists lock gazes with an intensity suggesting an eternal battle between spirit and flesh, a key motif in Moreau's style. In terms of its wider impact, this painting caused a sensation when displayed in the 1876 and influenced the subsequent development of Symbolism in both art and literature,