ABSTRACT
Gustave Moreau used the subject of Prometheus several times, and his famous paintings undoubtedly played an important part in the parallel drawn between Prometheus and Jesus Christ during the fin de siècle period. Although Moreau himself used sketches of Pradier's sculpture of Prometheus with his legs bent, he nevertheless chose to represent Prometheus in an upright, conquering position. The Promethean figure used by Moreau appears as the synthesis of the different symbols he took on, as a rebel, as the bearer of the fire of knowledge and Reason, and, as the figurehead of Symbolist idealism against materialism. The evolution of the treatment of Prometheus in Moreau's paintings allows to grasp the meaning of the current association between Jesus Christ and the Titan. In England and in Germany, where the shock of the rise of the industrial society was perceived as less brutal, or at least was not felt so deeply, the representations of Prometheus took other forms.
