Severed heads appear with great frequency in Symbolist art and literature, whether in stories of Salome or in more mysterious images such as this one. However, Redon also characterized himself as a "sad and weak child," who "sought out the shadows." ", "The Artist submits from day to day to the fatal rhythm of the impulses of the universal world which encloses him, continual center of sensations, always pliant, hypnotized by the marvels of nature which he loves, he scrutinizes. [Internet]. His eyes, like his soul, are in perpetual communion with the most fortuitous of phenomena. Finally, the ethereal surrounding space adds to the sense of the infinite, and the overall effect of the work is one of serene calm. Indeed, Redon based the painting upon an earlier charcoal drawing of the same subject. Redon's pastel still lifes seem familiar, yet simultaneously evoke the heightened images of eidetic, or photographic, memory. Redon described his flowers as being "at the confluence of two riverbanks, that of representation and that of memory." 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. The many floral still lifes that Redon created at the end of his career are among his most popular and recognizable works, and have been widely reproduced. Seagulls flit through the air and skim the water's surface, while the water stretches out toward the distant horizon. ", "The artist ... will always be a special, isolated, solitary agent with an innate sense of organizing matter. These also suggest some accessible resources for further research, especially ones that can be found and purchased via the internet. Content compiled and written by Rebecca Seiferle, Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors, "the only aim of my art is to produce within the spectator a sort of diffuse but powerful affinity with the obscure world of the indeterminate. The prints were not meant as illustrations of Poe's poems, but rather as "correspondences," to use Redon's term. Free shipping on many items | Browse your favorite brands ... Vintage French Artist GEORGE REDON 1931 Print THE DUCK AFTER THE WORMS 7-A. In the lower left, the fronds of a palm-like plant can be seen, and the sky is full of thick clouds. Pastel on paper - Metropolitan Museum of Art. The head or eyeball dissociated from the physical body is a symbol for freedom from the constraints of everyday life, and the attainment of a higher plane of consciousness. As scholar and curator Jodi Hauptman writes, "floating up 'towards infinity', let loose from the limitations of body and mind, Redon's eyes are free to really see, beyond reality, beyond nature, beyond the visible." Odilon Redon was born Bertrand Jean Redon to a prosperous family in Bordeaux. Night is itself dream-like, and the depiction of the figures in darker colors suggests that they inhabit the nocturnal world of sleep and reverie. With large dull eyes, a flattened nose, and wide lips, the head has an expression that is both observant and indifferent. The native South Americans on display, which Redon described as "haughty, cruel and grotesque," had a profound if complicated impact on the artist: on the one hand he admired the purity and simplicity of the so-called "primitive" people, while on the other he recognized in them the fearsome barbarity of man's origins. With large dull eyes, a flattened nose, and wide lips, the head has an expression that is both observant and indifferent. The artist employed wiping, stumping, incising and added touches of chalk on cream-colored treated paper, and often allowed untouched areas of the sheet to shine through for highlights. When the artist's father, Bernard Redon, was a young man, he travelled from France to Louisiana in order to try and recoup the family's lost wealth. Several small butterflies hover around the bouquet. Charcoal on paper - Museum of Modern Art, New York. An eyeball has morphed into a strange balloon, its gaze directed toward the heavens as it rises above the horizon. The drawing may be related to an exhibition Redon saw in Paris in 1881 featuring the inhabitants of the Tierra del Fuego. In Night, several figures occupy a landscape, with dark trees silhouetted against a golden light beneath a dark blue sky, floating winged heads, and profusions of plants and flowers and hovering butterflies. ", "My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. ", "Nothing can be created in art by the will alone. Indeed many of his "monsters" were based on observation, but were transformed by the artist's imagination. The drawing may be related to an exhibition Redon saw in Paris in 1881 featuring the inhabitants of the Tierra del Fuego. However, he would also have been aware of Gustave Moreau's acclaimed works that depicted the story tragically in the 1880s. A large head held aloft by wings floats above a tranquil sea, gazing upon a small sailboat with enormously expressive eyes. His lithographs, which often reworked earlier drawings, became a means to broaden his audience, as well as to explore in series specific themes or literary texts - he was particularly drawn to the Romantic and Symbolist works of Poe, Flaubert, and Mallarmé. In contrast to her monochromatic face, the Baronne's vivid red blouse suggests a more passionate soul than her reserved demeanor would indicate. All art is the submission of the will to the unconscious. ", "With pastel I have recovered the hope of giving my dreams greater plasticity...Colors contain a joy which relaxes me; besides, they sway me toward something different and new.". Galatea's body curled to the side, her face sleeping partially hidden by her overreaching arm, suggests privacy, a turning to the inner world of dreams. Pastel and graphite - The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. ", "I have often, as an exercise and as a sustenance, painted an object down to the smallest accidents of its visual appearance; but the day left me sad and with an unsatiated thirst. The vase is decorated with an image of an Amazon slaying a man, referring to the Greek myth of women warriors whose conflation of feminine and masculine traits echoes the conflation of human and plant forms in the drawing. The native South Americans on display, which Redon described as "haughty, cruel and grotesque," had a profound if complicated impact on the artist: on the one hand he admired the purity and simplicity of the so-called "primitive" people, while on the other he recognized in them the fearsome barbarity of man's origins. His lithographs and noirs in particular were admired by the Symbolist writers of the day but also by later Surrealists for their often bizarre and fantastical subjects, many of which combine scientific observation and visionary imagination.