Title: Pégase
Artist: Odilon Redon (French, 1840-1916)
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 65.4 x 54.5 cm
Description
Odilon Redon drew from classical mythology fables that symbolize the artist’s pursuit of beauty and truth. Among his recurring figures—Apollo, Phaethon, Orpheus—the most emblematic of his vision was neither human nor god, but the mythical winged horse, Pegasus. In Greek lore, Pegasus is born from sea-foam and Medusa’s blood. Tamed by Bellerophon with a golden bridle from Athena, they slay the fire-breathing Chimera. When Bellerophon attempts to ride Pegasus to heaven, his arrogance leads to his fall. Pegasus, untouched by human flaw, ascends alone to become a constellation.
From the 1880s onward, Redon rendered Pegasus across paintings, drawings, and lithographs. As noted, Pegasus in Redon’s work possesses an anatomical integrity rarely granted to his human figures—a perfection born of passionate study. In works like Pegasus and Bellerophon (c. 1888), the horse looms in somber charcoal shadows, imposing and dramatic. Here, in Pegasus, the creature is bathed in glistening warm tones, rearing majestically over a flowered hill, with Bellerophon faintly beside him—a beacon of radiant light.
Redon’s dreamlike oeuvre is considered a precursor to Surrealism; the horse, particularly Pegasus, later appeared frequently in works by Dalí and de Chirico. Matisse admired “the purity and ardor of his tonalities.” Even Duchamp paid tribute to Redon as “the prince of mysterious dreams,” stating, “If I were to say what my own point of departure has been, I should say it was the art of Odilon Redon.”
Image Download
Image Dimensions: 2637 x 3200 pixels
Image Size: 3.71 MB
Image Format: JPG
Print Resolution: 300 dpi
Download Format: ZIP Archive
License: Public Domain, Free for Commercial Use
