Title: Fleur sur un marécage
Artist: Odilon Redon (French, 1840-1916)
Medium: fusain et estompe on papier vergé
Dimensions: 37.3 x 30 cm
Date Created: 1885
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Description
Odilon Redon, the undisputed master of fantastical imagery, elevated charcoal drawing to a position of nobility within the Symbolist movement. His ‘noirs’, as the artist termed them, dominated his output during the 1870s and 1890s. In this period, he also devoted himself to lithography, primarily in black and white, producing albums that gathered his visionary works, imbued with inquiries into life’s mystery.
Executed around 1895, Fleur sur un marécage (Flower on a Marsh) captures the full poetry of Redon’s spiritual and fabulous thought. Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, Redon was among the first to explore the meanderings of the subconscious, obsessively cultivating his intimate visions through art. He transformed personal anguish into a fertile source of inspiration. Here, a strange flower is isolated within a halo of insolent brightness; the profound black surrounding it accentuates the almost monstrous protuberance of its open petals. A perfect fantasy, it is also a Baudelairian ‘flower of evil’, both venomous and captivating, blending reality with the sublime. Redon was a keen student of botany, introduced to the science by his friend Armand Clavaud. Clavaud’s suicide in 1890 profoundly affected the painter, who later dedicated his 1891 album Les Songes to his departed friend.
Image Download
Image Dimensions: 2586 x 3200 pixels
Image Size: 3.63 MB
Image Format: JPG
Print Resolution: 300 dpi
Download Format: ZIP Archive
License: Public Domain, Free for Commercial Use
