ODILON REDON

 SUNDAY Feature on ART of Architecture 

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Post 228 -by Gautam Shah

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Odilon Redon (1840-1916) was a French painter, graphic artist and ardent symbolist. Till the age of fifty, he was working substantially exclusively with charcoal drawings and lithographs. This consisted of weird subjects like strange creatures and plants, epimorphic forms. But during the 1890s he turned to colour painting and in a short while turned to bright colours.

Redon was a romantist. His works show several distinct trends. Prints explored the ‘haunted, fantastic, often macabre themes’. His colour portraits and still art, were realistic. His thematic paintings were highly symbolic. His architectural landscape art in brighter colours was well scaled, but overlooked the details. His architectural landscapes are devoid of any trees or even marginal greenery. He worked from memory.

In 1894, Redon wrote: ‘... liberated from the embarrassing concern of real details in order that it might freely serve only as the representation of conceived things.’

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