Odilon Redon
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox artist Odilon Redon (born Bertrand Redon; {{#invoke:IPA|main}}; 20 April 1840Template:Spaced ndash6 July 1916) was a French Symbolist draftsman, printmaker, and painter.
Early in his career, both before and after fighting in the Franco-Prussian War, Redon worked almost exclusively in charcoal and lithography, works known as his noirs. He gained recognition after his drawings were mentioned in the 1884 novel À rebours (Against Nature) by Joris-Karl Huysmans. During the 1890s, Redon began working in pastel and oil, which quickly became his favorite medium, abandoning his previous style of noirs completely after 1900. He developed a keen interest in Hindu and Buddhist religion and culture, which increasingly showed in his work.
Redon is perhaps best known today for the dreamlike paintings created in the first decade of the 20th century, which were inspired by Japanese art and leaned toward abstraction. His work is considered a precursor to Surrealism.
Early lifeEdit
Odilon Redon was born, on 20 April 1840,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> in Bordeaux, Aquitaine, to a prosperous family. Redon's father made his fortune in the slave trade in Louisiana in the 1830s.<ref name="Pfohl 2016">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Redon was conceived in New Orleans and the couple made the transatlantic journey back to France while his mother Marie Guérin, a French Creole woman, was pregnant with his brother Gaston.<ref name="Pfohl 2016" /> The young Bertrand Redon acquired the nickname "Odilon" from his mother's first name, Odile.<ref name="Ministère de la culture">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="artstory">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Redon started drawing as a child; at the age of ten, he was awarded a drawing prize at school. He began the formal study of drawing at fifteen but, at his father's insistence, he changed to architecture. Failure to pass the entrance exams at Paris' École des Beaux-Arts ended any plans for a career as an architect, although he briefly studied painting there under Jean-Léon Gérôme in 1864. (His younger brother Gaston Redon would become a noted architect.)
Back in his native Bordeaux, he took up sculpting, and Rodolphe Bresdin instructed him in etching and lithography. His artistic career was interrupted in 1870 when he was drafted<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> to serve in the army in the Franco-Prussian War until its end in 1871.<ref name="Sharyk 2022">Template:Cite journal</ref>
CareerEdit
At the end of the war, Redon moved to Paris and resumed working almost exclusively in charcoal and lithography. He called his visionary works, conceived in shades of black, his noirs. It was not until 1878 that his work gained any recognition with Guardian Spirit of the Waters; he published his first album of lithographs, titled Dans le Rêve, in 1879. Still, Redon remained relatively unknown until the appearance in 1884 of a cult novel by Joris-Karl Huysmans titled À rebours (Against Nature).<ref name="Kunst, Künstler, Ausstellungen, Kunstgeschichte e-Kunstmagazin 2014">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Redon 2018">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The story featured a decadent aristocrat who collected Redon's drawings.<ref name="Huysmans Capsius 2012 p. ">Template:Cite book</ref>
In 1886, Redon exhibited his work with the Impressionists in their the last exhibition.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The same year, he also began participating in the exhibitions of Les XX in Brussels.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In the 1890s, Redon worked in pastel and oil; he did not make noirs after 1900. In 1899, he exhibited with the Nabis at Durand-Ruel's.<ref name="Catplus.de 2015">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Christie's 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Redon had a keen interest in Hindu and Buddhist religion and culture. The figure of the Buddha increasingly showed in his work. Influences of Japonisme blended into his art, such as the painting The Death of the Buddha around 1899, The Buddha in 1906, Jacob and the Angel in 1905, and Vase with Japanese Warrior in 1905, among others.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Baron Robert de Domecy (1867–1946) commissioned Redon in 1899 to create 17 decorative panels for the dining room of the Château de Domecy-sur-le-Vault near Sermizelles in Burgundy. Redon had created large decorative works for private residences in the past, but his compositions for the château de Domecy in 1900–1901 were his most radical compositions to that point and mark the transition from ornamental to abstract painting. The landscape details do not show a specific place or space. Only details of trees, twigs with leaves, and budding flowers in an endless horizon can be seen. The colors used are mostly yellow, grey, brown and light blue. The influence of the Japanese painting style found on folding screens, byōbu, is discernible in his choice of colors and the rectangular proportions of most of the up to 2.5 metres high panels. Fifteen of them are located today in the Musée d'Orsay, acquired in 1988.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Domecy also commissioned Redon to paint portraits of his wife and their daughter Jeanne, two of which are in the collections of the Musée d'Orsay and the Getty Museum in California.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Most of the paintings remained in the Domecy family collection until the 1960s.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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Personal lifeEdit
At 40, Redon married Camille Falte, a young Creole from Île Bourbon. They had a son, Arï Redon (30 April 1889 – 13 May 1972 in Paris). A visual artist himself, and subject of his father's portraiture as a child, Arï's partner was Suzanne Redon.<ref name="Musée dOrsay 2023">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Redon died on 6 July 1916 in Paris.<ref name="Die Kathedrale (M+)">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Reception and interpretations of his workEdit
During his early years as an artist, Redon's works were described as "a synthesis of nightmares and dreams", as they contained dark, fantastical figures from the artist's own imagination.<ref>Redon, Odilon, and Raphaël Bouvier (2014). Odilon Redon. p. 2.</ref> His work represents an exploration of his internal feelings and psyche. Redon wanted to place "the logic of the visible at the service of the invisible".<ref>Redon, Odilon (1988). Odilon Redon: the Woodner Collection. Washington, D.C.: Phillips Collection. unpaginated. Template:OCLC.</ref> A telling source of Redon's inspiration and the forces behind his works can be found in his journal A Soi-même (To Myself). Of his process he wrote:<ref name="Redon 1989 p. ">Template:Cite book</ref>
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I have often, as an exercise and as a sustenance, painted before an object down to the smallest accidents of its visual appearance; but the day left me sad and with an unsatiated thirst. The next day I let the other source run, that of imagination, through the recollection of the forms and I was then reassured and appeased.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}
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Redon's drawings are characterized as mysterious and evocative by Joris-Karl Huysmans in the following passage from the novel À rebours (1884):
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The art historian Michael Gibson says that Redon began to want his works, even the ones darker in colour and subject matter, to portray "the triumph of light over darkness."<ref>Gibson, Michael, and Odilon Redon (2011). Odilon Redon, 1840–1916: The Prince of Dreams. Los Angeles, Calif: Taschen America. p. 97. Template:ISBN.</ref>
Redon described his work as ambiguous and undefinable:
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LegacyEdit
In 1903, Redon was awarded the Legion of Honour.<ref>Redon and Werner (1969), p. ix.</ref> His popularity increased when a catalogue of etchings and lithographs was published by André Mellerio in 1913; that same year, he was given the largest single representation at the groundbreaking US International Exhibition of Modern Art (aka Armory Show), in New York City, Chicago and Boston.<ref name="Scott 2021">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
His choice of color and subject matter in the second part of his career led to Redon being considered a precursor to Dadaism and Surrealism.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Encyclopedia Britannica 1999">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> According to Surrealist André Masson, Redon's use of bright colors in his flower pastels, as well as his choice of depicting uncommon or imaginary species renders his works "released from stylized naturalism", thus demonstrating the "endless possibilities of lyrical chromatics".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
In 1923, Mellerio published Odilon Redon: Peintre Dessinateur et Graveur.<ref name="Internet Archive 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> An archive of Mellerio's papers is held by the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago.<ref name="Mellerio 2018">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Redon was the inspiration for Guy Maddin's 1995 short film Odilon Redon, or The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity.<ref>William Beard, Into the Past: The Cinema of Guy Maddin. University of Toronto Press, 2010. Template:ISBN. pp. 363–365.</ref>
Modern exhibitionsEdit
In 2005, the Museum of Modern Art launched an exhibition entitled "Beyond The Visible", a comprehensive overview of Redon's work showcasing more than 100 paintings, drawings, prints and books from The Ian Woodner Family Collection. The exhibition ran from 30 October 2005 to 23 January 2006.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
In 2007, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt presented the exhibition "As in a Dream" with a survey of Redon's work with more than 200 drawings, lithographs, pastels, and paintings.<ref name="Schirn 2007">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The Grand Palais in Paris, France featured a vast exhibition of Redon's art from March to June 2011 <ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Switzerland showed a retrospective from February to May 2014.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, The Netherlands, had an exhibition with an emphasis on the role that literature and music played in Redon's life and work, under the title La littérature et la musique. The exhibition ran from 2 June to 9 September 2018.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
GalleryEdit
- Redon spirit-waters.jpg
Guardian Spirit of the Waters, 1878 (Art Institute of Chicago)
- Redon - L'oeil, comme un ballon bizarre, se dirige vers l'infini, 0217275.jpg
The Eye Like a Weird Balloon, Goes to Infinity, 1882 (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)
- Odilon Redon - Sita.jpg
Sita, c. 1893, pastel (Art Institute of Chicago)
- La Mort de Bouddha (The Death of Buddha), c. 1899, Odilon Redon.jpg
The Death of Buddha, c. 1899 (private collection)
- Odilon Redon Le Christ du silence Petit Palais 29122017.jpg
The Christ of Silence, Petit Palais
- Odilon Redon - Flower Clouds - Google Art Project.jpg
Flower Clouds, 1903 (Art Institute of Chicago)
- Redon.ophelia.jpg
Ophelia, 1900–1905 (Dian Woodner Collection)
- The Buddha.png
The Buddha, 1904 (Van Gogh Museum)
- Reflection, 1900-1905.jpg
Reflection, 1900–1905 (private collection)
- Redon.bouddha.jpg
The Buddha, c. 1904-1907 (Musée d'Orsay)
- WLA moma Odilon Redon Apparition.jpg
Apparition, 1905 (Museum of Modern Art)
- OdilonRedon-The Chariot of Apollo.png
The Chariot of Apollo, 1909 (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux)
- Odilon Redon 005.jpg
Flowers, 1909
- Redon - CHRIST EN CROIX, RF 1984 53.jpg
Christ on the Cross, 1984
- Redon - Underwater Vision c. 1910.jpg
Underwater Vision, c. 1910 (Museum of Modern Art)
- Odilon Redon - The Cyclops, c. 1914.jpg
The Cyclops, 1914 (Kröller-Müller Museum)
- Bemberg Fondation Toulouse - L'enlèvement de Ganymède - Odilon Redon 41x32.5 Inv.2148.jpg
The Abduction of Ganymede (Bemberg Foundation)
- Evocation Odilon Redon.jpeg
Evocation, undated (private collection)
- Saint Sebastian by Odilon Redon.JPG
Saint Sebastian, 1910-1912
ReferencesEdit
BibliographyEdit
- Russell T. Clement, Four French Symbolists: A Sourcebook on Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon, and Maurice Denis, Greenwood Press, 1996, Template:ISBN & Template:ISBN
- Jodi Hauptman and Marina Van Zuylen, Beyond the Visible: The Art of Odilon Redon, 2005, Template:ISBN & Template:ISBN
- Andre Mellerio, Odilon Redon, 1968, ASIN B0007DNIKO
- Odilon Redon and Alfred Werner, The Graphic Works of Odilon Redon, Dover, 1969, Template:ISBN
- Odilon Redon and Alfred Werner, The Graphic Works of Odilon Redon, (Dover Pictorial Archive), 2005, Template:ISBN & Template:ISBN
- Margret Stuffmann, Odilon Redon: As in a Dream, 2007, Template:ISBN & Template:ISBN
External linksEdit
- Template:Internet Archive author
- odilonredon.net – Online biography and pictures of Odilon Redon
- Artcyclopedia – Links to Redon's works
- The Athenaeum Template:Webarchive – Extensive list and images of Redon's works
- Museum Syndicate – Odilon Redon Gallery at Museum Syndicate
- Web Museum – Biography and images of Redon's works
- Template:MoMA artist
- MoMA Exhibition – "Beyond the Visible – The Art of Odilon Redon" – MoMA exhibition (October 2005 – January 2006)
- Kunstmuseum Den Haag – Site with 322 prints by Odilon Redon
- odilon.chez.com – Timeline of Redon's life
- Redon's Cats
- Exhibition catalogue, Odilon Redon: Vision and Sight, Jill Newhouse Gallery, 4 - 26 May 2023