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"My drawings inspire and cannot be defined. They do not define anything. Like music, they place us in the ambiguous realm of the indefinite."
Odilon Redon's works were created during the heyday of Impressionism, which was soaked in light, and could not be more contrary to it. Redon was a master of shadow and darkness. He drew deeply from his inner self, explored the unconscious and found images of fear and death.
"What separates the artist from the dilettante?" Redon asked. "Only the pain the artist feels. The dilettante seeks only pleasure."
As a precursor of Expressionism and Surrealism, Redon created in his "black phase" with charcoal drawings and prints the well-known nightmare pictures with eyeballs detached from the body, the motif of the smiling spider or the picture of the "raven" sitting on the window sill as a messenger of death, inspired by Edgar Allen Poe's poem "The Raven".
In the spirit of surrealism, Redon repeatedly blurs the boundaries between dream and reality. He shows a "cactus man" with spines growing from his head, the "egg" drawn in 1885 has eyes and protrudes halfway out of an egg cup as a hairless skull.
After the painful loss of his first son, Redon's work changes significantly in the second phase of his creative work, which begins after the birth of his second son. His paintings are now full of colourful radiance and shine in the light tones of the pastel chalks he uses. The artist turned to the outside world: he painted landscapes in clear colours, flowery still lifes and opened himself thematically to the transcendent ideas of Christian and Buddhist mythology.
"My drawings inspire and cannot be defined. They do not define anything. Like music, they place us in the ambiguous realm of the indefinite."
Odilon Redon's works were created during the heyday of Impressionism, which was soaked in light, and could not be more contrary to it. Redon was a master of shadow and darkness. He drew deeply from his inner self, explored the unconscious and found images of fear and death.
"What separates the artist from the dilettante?" Redon asked. "Only the pain the artist feels. The dilettante seeks only pleasure."
As a precursor of Expressionism and Surrealism, Redon created in his "black phase" with charcoal drawings and prints the well-known nightmare pictures with eyeballs detached from the body, the motif of the smiling spider or the picture of the "raven" sitting on the window sill as a messenger of death, inspired by Edgar Allen Poe's poem "The Raven".
In the spirit of surrealism, Redon repeatedly blurs the boundaries between dream and reality. He shows a "cactus man" with spines growing from his head, the "egg" drawn in 1885 has eyes and protrudes halfway out of an egg cup as a hairless skull.
After the painful loss of his first son, Redon's work changes significantly in the second phase of his creative work, which begins after the birth of his second son. His paintings are now full of colourful radiance and shine in the light tones of the pastel chalks he uses. The artist turned to the outside world: he painted landscapes in clear colours, flowery still lifes and opened himself thematically to the transcendent ideas of Christian and Buddhist mythology.