Odilon Redon: Prince of Dreams

Unlike many other art books, Odilon Redon: Prince of Dreams was not published as a catalog intended to accompany an exhibit.  Perhaps for that reason it is much more comprehensive than most I've read.  Containing essays by a number of authors, the book traces Redon's development as an artist from his childhood drawing lessons through his later years when he grew in stature to become one of the most important artists of the Symbolist movement.

Redon's art passed through several distinct stages.  Something of a dilettante in his twenties, it was only after he had completed military service in the Franco-Prussian War that, at roughly age thirty, he adopted the distinctive style he is best known for today.  It was then that, in anticipation of both Freud and the Surrealists, he tapped into the imagery of the unconscious mind to produce some of his best known works - The Guardian of the Waters (1878), The Eye Balloon (1978) and The Smiling Spider (1881).  It is notable that all three of these are charcoal drawings.  It was the artist's preference for monochrome that gave the noirs from this period such powerful impact.  His adoption of pastels toward the end of the century led him to a style that, while colorful and appealing, lacked the intensity he had formerly demonstrated.  It is really on his output in the two decades between 1870 and 1890 that his reputation rests today.

More than most artists, Redon was deeply influenced by literature.  Not only was he a writer himself, but he also kept company with a number of influential authors.  The most important of these was Joris-Karl Huysmans, author of the decadent novel À rebours in which Redon is praised by name.  It was the infamy achieved by Huysmans's books that solidified Redon's position as an artist of the macabre.  He himself abetted this distinction through the illustrations he completed based on stories by Poe.  The most famous of these, both from 1883, are the charcoal drawings inspired by "The Masque of Red Death" and "The Tell Tale Heart."

The best essays are those written by Douglas W. Druick together with Peter Kort Zegers that trace the artist's biography before 1900.  Other chapters of interest are "Redon and the Transformation of the Symbolist Aesthetic" by Maryanne Stevens and "Redon's Spiritualism and the Rise of Mysticism" by Fred Leeman.  On the other hand, while the two essays dealing with "Redon and the Marketplace" by Kevin Sharp might be of value to collectors, they are of little interest to general readers.  By far the most useful chapter to those who themselves practice the visual arts, and one I wish more art books contained, was that dealing with the materials actually used by Redon in his work.  Entitled "Beneath the Surface" and written by Harriet K. Stratis, it contains a fairly exhaustive study of the papers and art supplies available in the late nineteenth century as well as the manner in which they were employed by the artist.  Such an analysis is especially important in the case of Redon because he worked in such a wide range of genres, from drawings and pastels to etchings and lithographs.

The works of the Symbolist artists have largely fallen out of fashion today.  Even in their own time, their achievements were eclipsed first by the Impressionists and then by the Modernists.  Their attraction to decadence seems out of touch and even naive to a twenty-first century audience.  Nevertheless, not only are Redon's best works visually striking, they are also keenly penetrating on a psychological level and well worth studying for that reason alone.  Redon was not only an excellent draftsman but an important artist as well.