Title: Grand bouquet de fleurs des champs
Artist: Odilon Redon (French, 1840-1916)
Medium: oil on board
Dimensions: 67.4 x 52.1 cm
Date Created: circa 1900-1905
Description
In the late 1890s and early 1900s, Odilon Redon embarked on an extensive series of floral works in oil and pastel, marking a definitive shift in his artistic trajectory. Moving beyond the celebrated mystery of his charcoal noirs and lithographs, Redon turned his focus to color. He described flowers as “those fragile perfumed beings, exquisite prodigies of light,” finding in them the ideal subject to merge still-life tradition with his singular vision.
Grand bouquet de fleurs des champs, created circa 1900-1905, embodies this pivotal transition. A vibrant bundle of summer wildflowers—poppies, asters, daisies, cornflowers—seems to spill organically from its slender vase. The arrangement echoes blossoms in a meadow. Redon once expressed, “I do not know of anything that has given me more pleasure than such an appreciation of simple flowers in their vase breathing air.”
The multi-hued vase, a unique creation by ceramicist Maria Botkin, engages in a subtle dialogue with the blooms through its gloss glaze and sinuous lines. By omitting contextual details, Redon lets the vase and bouquet float against a softly variegated ground, their colors intensified. This lends a dreamlike quality, yet the flowers are rendered with precise observation, rooted in Redon’s deep study of nature, influenced by botanist Armand Clavaud.
Redon’s daring, jewel-like color in works like this revealed his creative focus. His chromatic freedom profoundly influenced younger artists, notably Henri Matisse, who avidly collected Redon’s work and admired his “pure, expressive color,” finding inspiration for his own Fauve explorations.
Image Download
Image Dimensions: 2516 x 3200 pixels
Image Size: 2.56 MB
Image Format: JPG
Print Resolution: 300 dpi
Download Format: ZIP Archive
License: Public Domain, Free for Commercial Use
