Moreau, Phone Cases

Artist: Gustave Moreau; Oedipus and the Sphinx, 1864

A public domain image I downloaded from the Open Access area of the Metropolitan Museum's database of art.

The original hangs in the Metropolitan Museum.  Moreau went avant garde in 1864 while most other artists drew inspiration from everyday life Moreau went against the grain and took his inspiration from mythical figures and stories from the bible.  He made a name for himself at the Salon of 1864 with this piece.  

Later on the Psychiatrist Sigmund Freud in Vienna would turn the mythical story of Oedipus and his daughter Antigone into a mentally ill psychological condition which he explained in one of his books published in 1899. 

I have suspected and theorized myself that Frued took influence and came up with some of his theories and ideas from the art movements and popularity of certain artists at the time as well from his patients.  The erotic works of Gustav Courbert and later on the erotic works of Vienna artist Gustave Klimpt and the group of artists known as "The Vienna School" attempted to buck the current trends of impressionism at the time.  They adopted no specific style. 

The University of Vienna in 1897 (2 years before Frued's theory was published) commissioned Klimpt to paint three paintings.  When he revealed the paintings the University and the public declared the works to be pornographic and too explicit for the public.  

My theory is that because Sigmund and Klimpt were both living in the same town at the same time and he worked at the University of Vienna he 100% heard of the controversy of the artwork by Klimpt.  As a creative person himself with an impressive imagination it is not at all illogical to believe that the work of artists like Moreau and Klimpt influenced his writings and theories on the human mind and psychology in an unconcious way. 

That being said the story of Oedipus is a good Greek Tragedy.  I am thankful my High School English teacher made us read it the first week of school my junior year.  The story goes that Oedipus is a guy who gets kicked out of his town after being told he was a bastard and after an oracle tells him he will kill his dad and marry his mother. He travels the road and in a fit of road rage kills a guy in a charriot and then meets this sphinx who gives him a riddle and if he gets the riddle wrong he will get killed, but if he gets it right he will be made king.

The Riddle is an allegory to life and is. "What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three at night." Oedipus answers that it is a Man because... "Man: as an infant, he crawls on all fours; as an adult he walks on two legs and; in old age he uses a walking stick." 

He is correct and is made king and marries a newly widowed queen.  

Later on it is revealed that he is a bastard and his parents left him to die in a field after an oracle told them some crazy story.  A herdsman saved the baby and sent him out of town.  Then Oedipus realizes that he was that baby and the guy he killed on the road before meeting the sphinx was his dad and he did marry his mother. 

In shame Oedipus blindes himself and wonders the countryside as a blind man until he dies.  (Depending on the source of the story the ending is different)