Jeune femme de profil dans une sphère lumineuse

The profile is a key element in Redon's oeuvre. It is the symbolic point of intersection between the viewer and the the artist's inner world. The profile becomes a powerful and androgynous motif that Redon adapts with equal ease to his depictions of Christ, Apollo, and his various femmes-fleurs. In Jeune femme de profil dans une sphère lumineuse, the profile is combined with a luminous sphere whose shape also reappears, though metamorphosed, in other watercolours, pastels, and oils by Redon (W. 239-300). The figure's 'coiffure à l'anglaise' also recurs in one of his charcoal drawings (W. 161).