When I want to render these fine nuances, I do not find them in the subject, but in the nature of women in real life who seek unhealthy emotions and are too stupid even to understand the horror in the most appalling situations.

Moreau became a professor at Paris' École des Beaux-Arts in 1891 and among his many students were the fauvist painters Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault. Oedipus and the Sphinx one of his first symbolist paintings was exhibited at the Salon of 1864. He showed A Scene from the Song of Songs and The Death of Darius in the Salon of 1853.

As a painter Moreau appealed to the imaginations of some Symbolist writers and artists.