Odilon Redon (1840–1916)

Life and Work

Odilon Redon (1840–1916) was a French Symbolist artist who spent the first half of his career working almost exclusively in black: charcoal drawings and lithographs he called his "Noirs." These dark works are filled with disembodied eyes, severed heads, strange creatures, and landscapes from nightmares. He was admired by the Symbolist poets and writers, who recognized a kindred spirit.

Around 1890, something shifted. Redon began working in color, pastels at first, then oils. The subject matter softened: flowers in vases, mythological scenes, women in profile. But the strangeness never fully left. Even his most beautiful flower paintings carry an otherworldly intensity, colors that seem to glow from within.

Style and Themes

Redon resisted categories. He wasn't quite an Impressionist, though he knew them. He wasn't quite a Surrealist, though they claimed him decades later. His work lives in between — rooted in observation but reaching toward the unseen. He drew inspiration from music, poetry, and his own imagination, once writing: "My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined."

I have made an art according to myself.

Odilon Redon

His late flower paintings have become some of his most popular work. They sit comfortably beside more traditional still lifes while remaining unmistakably his own. Dream-flowers rendered with scientific attention to form but impossible saturations of color.