Odilon Redon
Odilon Redon
As an artist, Odilon Redon expressed his volition to “place the visible at the service of the invisible.” What, in these terms, constitutes the “visible” aspect of Redon’s works, and what constitutes the “invisible”? Similarly, what reappearing motifs do we see in
Redon’s works, and how might these be contextualized or interpreted?
As a child, Odilon Redon had learned from his father, to watch the rolling clouds and see the infinite manifestations of form. This carried on far into his career as an artist, the man who saw orphaned dreams lurking behind every corner of reality. He was the rare Symbolist artist who found the strange grey plane between science and art, and saw their inseparability in a time when the human race obsessively sought to classify the infinite works of Mother Nature. Redon saw in the great technique of sculpting reality known as Chiaroscuro, the ability to create a sense of reality even in the fantastical. This he discovered from his study of the shadowy paintings of Rembrandt, The Night-Watch in particular. Here he saw how shadow could be used to create a sense of curious ambiguity in stark contrast to figures in the painted light. The darkness, to him evoked a strange sense of the unknown, and this he would apply over and over again in Noirs, or Black drawings and etchings. Chiaroscuro is a method used to create the great illusion of reality in a painting, and this Redon employed to represent his visions of the fantastic with a sense of credible reality. He tells the viewer what is visible by describing his figures in light, even though they may be the stuff of fantasy. Such presentation of “reality” encourages the viewer to challenge the concept of real “sight”, which I will go further into later in this essay. The visions of Redon are by no means mere whims of fantasy, but rather things that were constructed by the same general laws of nature. For a creator of monsters and apparitions, a huge amount of
As an artist, Odilon Redon expressed his volition to “place the visible at the service of the invisible.” What, in these terms, constitutes the “visible” aspect of Redon’s works, and what constitutes the “invisible”? Similarly, what reappearing motifs do we see in
Redon’s works, and how might these be contextualized or interpreted?
As a child, Odilon Redon had learned from his father, to watch the rolling clouds and see the infinite manifestations of form. This carried on far into his career as an artist, the man who saw orphaned dreams lurking behind every corner of reality. He was the rare Symbolist artist who found the strange grey plane between science and art, and saw their inseparability in a time when the human race obsessively sought to classify the infinite works of Mother Nature. Redon saw in the great technique of sculpting reality known as Chiaroscuro, the ability to create a sense of reality even in the fantastical. This he discovered from his study of the shadowy paintings of Rembrandt, The Night-Watch in particular. Here he saw how shadow could be used to create a sense of curious ambiguity in stark contrast to figures in the painted light. The darkness, to him evoked a strange sense of the unknown, and this he would apply over and over again in Noirs, or Black drawings and etchings. Chiaroscuro is a method used to create the great illusion of reality in a painting, and this Redon employed to represent his visions of the fantastic with a sense of credible reality. He tells the viewer what is visible by describing his figures in light, even though they may be the stuff of fantasy. Such presentation of “reality” encourages the viewer to challenge the concept of real “sight”, which I will go further into later in this essay. The visions of Redon are by no means mere whims of fantasy, but rather things that were constructed by the same general laws of nature. For a creator of monsters and apparitions, a huge amount of
Bibliography: 1. Hauptman, Jodi. Beyond the visible: the art of Odilon Redon. 2005 2. Gibson, Michael. Odilon Redon, 1840-1916: The Prince of Dreams. 1996 3. Rodolphe Rapetti. Symbolism. trans. Deke Dusinberre. Paris, London. 2005 4. Charles Chadwick. Symbolism. 1971 5. Larson, Barbara. “Evolution and Degeneration in the Early Work of Odilon Redon” in Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring_03/articles/lars_print.html, consulted 9 Nov2007