Title: Géraniums et fleurs des champs
Artist: Odilon Redon (French, 1840-1916)
Medium: pastel on tinted paper
Dimensions: 44 x 36 cm
Date Created: circa 1905
Description
In his sixties, Odilon Redon turned away from the dark, troubling visions of his earlier paintings, lithographs, and charcoal “noirs,” embarking on an extended series of floral works in oil and pastel after 1900. “The demons have retired,” as Klaus Berger noted. Responding to the decorative theories of the young Nabi painters and the scientific color research of the Neo-Impressionists, Redon adopted a wholly novel approach, captivated by the purity of means and the Symbolist ideal of art for art’s sake. Color became his central preoccupation; he now selected subjects for their chromatic potential. Flowers, which Redon perceived as “fragile perfumed beings, exquisite prodigies of light,” offered the ideal vehicle for his new expressive field.
For these floral compositions, Redon favored pastel, a medium whose vibrant tones he had explored since the mid-1890s. Oscillating between overt realism and a more fantastical realm, he fully exploited this intrinsically iridescent support to play with texture and saturation. His increasing use of pastel worried some friends and collectors, who feared he would neglect the subjects, style, and charcoal of the “noirs” that had earned him a devoted, if limited, following. Confident that his color drawings could enchant enthusiasts, Redon exhibited seven pastels alongside several charcoals and one oil painting at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in March 1899, in a show also featuring Post-Impressionist and Nabi artists. All the pastels sold, encouraging him to continue in this direction.
Image Download
Image Dimensions: 1652 x 2000 pixels
Image Size: 1.85 MB
Image Format: JPG
Print Resolution: 300 dpi
Download Format: ZIP Archive
License: Public Domain, Free for Commercial Use
