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Lot Essay
Out of a cloud of luminescent colour, the profile of an enigmatic figure appears in Odilon Redon’s Profil bleu. Executed circa 1895, this mystical, deeply poetic image presents one of the most important and recognizable motifs of Redon’s oeuvre – an androgynous figure in profile. Pictured as if lost in thought, and cloaked in raiment of a timeless, unidentifiable period, this figure is rapt in pensive silence, immersed in the radiance of inward visions or dreams. This compelling subject, together with Redon’s deft use of pastel to create evanescent passages of glowing colour, exemplify the Symbolist artist’s unique pictorial voice. ‘I have made an art according to myself,’ Redon declared in Confessions of an Artist. ‘I have done it with eyes open to the marvels of the visible world’ (M. Jacob and J.L. Wasserman, trans., To Myself: Notes on Life, Art, and Artists, New York, 1986, p. 23).
Profil bleu dates from a key turning point in Redon’s oeuvre. At this time, the artist began to leave behind the macabre and nightmarish imagery that had prevailed in his work prior, what he called his ‘noirs’ – drawings rendered in richly layered charcoal, black chalk and conté crayon, as well as lithographs in black and white. Instead, he allowed colour, both with pastel and oil paint, to flood his work, bringing with it a rich symbolism, mystery and poeticism that would come to define his practice. With vibrant tints of pastel, Redon conjured new, fantastical, often beatific realms in his work, creating otherworldly fluorescences of colour through which he could invoke the spectacle of dreams or visions from the unconscious. ‘While I recognise the necessity for a basis of observed reality,’ Redon declared, ‘true art lies in a reality that is felt’ (quoted in J. Rewald, Post-Impressionism, From Van Gogh to Gauguin, New York, 1978, p. 153). As the present Profil bleu attests, Redon revelled in the rich contrasts of tone to impart an ephemeral, mysterious quality to this figure and its setting.
This new artistic direction brought with it new subject matter for the artist. Redon frequently returned to the head in profile or with closed eyes, often juxtaposing the figure with flowers. This would lead to another of the subjects for which Redon is best known – the floral still life – a motif that preoccupied him in the 1900s. In Profil bleu, blooms explode in the foreground, chromatic fireworks that dazzle in contrast to the cool blue profile. The protagonist itself remains undefinable. There is perhaps a religious allusion with the golden veil and blue visage to the Virgin Mary, yet, ultimately this subject remains in the realm of imagination. As Redon wrote, ‘There is a certain style of drawing that the imagination has liberated from the embarrassing concern for real details in order that it might freely serve only as the representation of conceived things. All my originality, then, consists in giving human life to unlikely creatures according to the laws of probability, while, as much as possible, putting the logic of the visible at the service of the invisible’ (op. cit., 1986, p. 23).
With his interest in the envisioning of what lay beyond the visible, Redon became closely associated with the Symbolist movement. Referred to as the ‘Prince of Dreams,’ Redon was a key influence on the nascent Nabi group. In 1886, Paul Gauguin, a fellow pioneer of a Symbolist aesthetic, introduced Redon to Edouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard, and Maurice Denis, a group which, with their interest in Japonisme and approach to colour, also had an important impact on Redon’s work. ‘[Redon] is at the origin of all the aesthetic innovations or renovations, of all revolutions of taste that we have witnessed [since 1890],’ Denis later wrote of Redon in 1912. ‘He foresaw them, he even loved their excesses. As opposed to weighty systems that actually mask the absence of sensitivity for most young painters, Redon’s lesson is his inability to paint anything that does not represent a state of the soul, that does not translate an interior vision’ (quoted in J. Rewald, Studies in Post-Impressionism, New York, 1986, pp. 223-224).
In the 1920s, the Surrealists adopted Redon as a key source of inspiration, finding in his expression of the unconscious and hidden realms an important precursor of their own aims. For Marcel Duchamp, Redon stood as a definitive influence on his groundbreaking artistic approach. ‘If I were to say what my own point of departure has been,’ he declared, ‘I should say it was the art of Odilon Redon’ (quoted in J. Rewald, Studies in Post-Impressionism, New York, 1986, pp. 240).
The first owner of Profil bleu was Redon’s friend and patron, Baron Robert de Domecy. In 1899, Redon completed an ambitious commission of decorative paintings for the dining room of the de Domency’s chateau in Burgundy, which showcased radical, abstracted compositions. Redon also completed two portraits of his wife, Jeanne, one in oil and one in pastel.
Profil bleu dates from a key turning point in Redon’s oeuvre. At this time, the artist began to leave behind the macabre and nightmarish imagery that had prevailed in his work prior, what he called his ‘noirs’ – drawings rendered in richly layered charcoal, black chalk and conté crayon, as well as lithographs in black and white. Instead, he allowed colour, both with pastel and oil paint, to flood his work, bringing with it a rich symbolism, mystery and poeticism that would come to define his practice. With vibrant tints of pastel, Redon conjured new, fantastical, often beatific realms in his work, creating otherworldly fluorescences of colour through which he could invoke the spectacle of dreams or visions from the unconscious. ‘While I recognise the necessity for a basis of observed reality,’ Redon declared, ‘true art lies in a reality that is felt’ (quoted in J. Rewald, Post-Impressionism, From Van Gogh to Gauguin, New York, 1978, p. 153). As the present Profil bleu attests, Redon revelled in the rich contrasts of tone to impart an ephemeral, mysterious quality to this figure and its setting.
This new artistic direction brought with it new subject matter for the artist. Redon frequently returned to the head in profile or with closed eyes, often juxtaposing the figure with flowers. This would lead to another of the subjects for which Redon is best known – the floral still life – a motif that preoccupied him in the 1900s. In Profil bleu, blooms explode in the foreground, chromatic fireworks that dazzle in contrast to the cool blue profile. The protagonist itself remains undefinable. There is perhaps a religious allusion with the golden veil and blue visage to the Virgin Mary, yet, ultimately this subject remains in the realm of imagination. As Redon wrote, ‘There is a certain style of drawing that the imagination has liberated from the embarrassing concern for real details in order that it might freely serve only as the representation of conceived things. All my originality, then, consists in giving human life to unlikely creatures according to the laws of probability, while, as much as possible, putting the logic of the visible at the service of the invisible’ (op. cit., 1986, p. 23).
With his interest in the envisioning of what lay beyond the visible, Redon became closely associated with the Symbolist movement. Referred to as the ‘Prince of Dreams,’ Redon was a key influence on the nascent Nabi group. In 1886, Paul Gauguin, a fellow pioneer of a Symbolist aesthetic, introduced Redon to Edouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard, and Maurice Denis, a group which, with their interest in Japonisme and approach to colour, also had an important impact on Redon’s work. ‘[Redon] is at the origin of all the aesthetic innovations or renovations, of all revolutions of taste that we have witnessed [since 1890],’ Denis later wrote of Redon in 1912. ‘He foresaw them, he even loved their excesses. As opposed to weighty systems that actually mask the absence of sensitivity for most young painters, Redon’s lesson is his inability to paint anything that does not represent a state of the soul, that does not translate an interior vision’ (quoted in J. Rewald, Studies in Post-Impressionism, New York, 1986, pp. 223-224).
In the 1920s, the Surrealists adopted Redon as a key source of inspiration, finding in his expression of the unconscious and hidden realms an important precursor of their own aims. For Marcel Duchamp, Redon stood as a definitive influence on his groundbreaking artistic approach. ‘If I were to say what my own point of departure has been,’ he declared, ‘I should say it was the art of Odilon Redon’ (quoted in J. Rewald, Studies in Post-Impressionism, New York, 1986, pp. 240).
The first owner of Profil bleu was Redon’s friend and patron, Baron Robert de Domecy. In 1899, Redon completed an ambitious commission of decorative paintings for the dining room of the de Domency’s chateau in Burgundy, which showcased radical, abstracted compositions. Redon also completed two portraits of his wife, Jeanne, one in oil and one in pastel.