Odilon Redon

Odilon Redon (born Bertrand Redon; ; 20 April 18406 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 life

Odilon Redon was born, on 20 April 1840, in Bordeaux, Aquitaine, to a prosperous family. Redon's father made his fortune in the slave trade in Louisiana in the 1830s. 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. The young Bertrand Redon acquired the nickname "Odilon" from his mother's first name, Odile. 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 to serve in the army in the Franco-Prussian War until its end in 1871.

Career

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''). The story featured a decadent aristocrat who collected Redon's drawings.

In 1886, Redon exhibited his work with the Impressionists in their the last exhibition. The same year, he also began participating in the exhibitions of Les XX in Brussels.

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.

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.

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.

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. Most of the paintings remained in the Domecy family collection until the 1960s.

Personal life

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.

Redon died on 6 July 1916 in Paris.

Reception and interpretations of his work

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. 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". 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:

Redon's drawings are characterized as mysterious and evocative by Joris-Karl Huysmans in the following passage from the novel '' À rebours'' (1884):

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."

Redon described his work as ambiguous and undefinable:

Legacy

In 1903, Redon was awarded the Legion of Honour. 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.

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. 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".

In 1923, Mellerio published ''Odilon Redon: Peintre Dessinateur et Graveur''. An archive of Mellerio's papers is held by the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Redon was the inspiration for Guy Maddin's 1995 short film '' Odilon Redon, or The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity''.

Modern exhibitions

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.

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.

The Grand Palais in Paris, France featured a vast exhibition of Redon's art from March to June 2011

The Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Switzerland showed a retrospective from February to May 2014.

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.

Gallery

File:Redon spirit-waters.jpg, ''Guardian Spirit of the Waters'', 1878 (Art Institute of Chicago)

File: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)

File:Odilon Redon - Sita.jpg, ''Sita'', c. 1893, pastel (Art Institute of Chicago)

File:La Mort de Bouddha (The Death of Buddha), c. 1899, Odilon Redon.jpg, '' The Death of Buddha'', c. 1899 (private collection)

File:Odilon Redon Le Christ du silence Petit Palais 29122017.jpg, ''The Christ of Silence'', Petit Palais
File:Odilon Redon - Flower Clouds - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Flower Clouds'', 1903 (Art Institute of Chicago)
File:Redon.ophelia.jpg, ''Ophelia'', 1900–1905 (Dian Woodner Collection)
File:The Buddha.png, The Buddha, 1904 (Van Gogh Museum)
File:Reflection, 1900-1905.jpg, ''Reflection'', 1900–1905 (private collection)
File:Redon.bouddha.jpg, ''The Buddha'', c. 1904-1907 (Musée d'Orsay)

File:WLA moma Odilon Redon Apparition.jpg, ''Apparition'', 1905 (Museum of Modern Art)

File:OdilonRedon-The Chariot of Apollo.png, The Chariot of Apollo, 1909 ( Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux)
File:Odilon Redon 005.jpg, ''Flowers'', 1909
File:Redon - CHRIST EN CROIX, RF 1984 53.jpg, ''Christ on the Cross'', 1984

File:Redon - Underwater Vision c. 1910.jpg, ''Underwater Vision'', c. 1910 (Museum of Modern Art)

File:Odilon Redon - The Cyclops, c. 1914.jpg, '' The Cyclops'', 1914 ( Kröller-Müller Museum)
File:Bemberg Fondation Toulouse - L'enlèvement de Ganymède - Odilon Redon 41x32.5 Inv.2148.jpg, ''The Abduction of Ganymede'' ( Bemberg Foundation)
File:Evocation Odilon Redon.jpeg, ''Evocation'', undated (private collection)

File:Saint Sebastian by Odilon Redon.JPG, ''Saint Sebastian'', 1910-1912

References

Bibliography

* Russell T. Clement, ''Four French Symbolists: A Sourcebook on Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon, and Maurice Denis,'' Greenwood Press, 1996, &
*Jodi Hauptman and Marina Van Zuylen, ''Beyond the Visible: The Art of Odilon Redon,'' 2005, &
*Andre Mellerio, ''Odilon Redon,'' 1968, ASIN B0007DNIKO
*Odilon Redon and Alfred Werner, ''The Graphic Works of Odilon Redon'', Dover, 1969,
*Odilon Redon and Alfred Werner, ''The Graphic Works of Odilon Redon'', (Dover Pictorial Archive), 2005, &
*Margret Stuffmann, ''Odilon Redon: As in a Dream,'' 2007, &

External links

*

odilonredon.net
– Online biography and pictures of Odilon Redon


– Links to Redon's works

The Athenaeum
– 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
*

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


– Timeline of Redon's life

Redon's Cats
* Exhibition catalogue,
Odilon Redon: Vision and Sight
', Jill Newhouse Gallery, 4 - 26 May 2023

{{DEFAULTSORT:Redon, Odilon
1840 births
1916 deaths
19th-century French engravers
19th-century French lithographers
19th-century French male artists
19th-century French painters
20th-century French engravers
20th-century French lithographers
20th-century French male artists
20th-century French painters
Painters from Bordeaux
French draughtsmen
French male painters
French military personnel of the Franco-Prussian War
French Post-impressionist painters
French Symbolist painters
Recipients of the Legion of Honour