Redon Odilon: Biography and Creativity

Redon Odilon is a French painter, graphic artist, art critic, considered one of the founders of symbolism as a flow in art. Coming from an aristocratic family, Redon was born on April 22, 1840 in Bordeaux.

Odilon Redon: Biography

Drawing Redon fond of children. The works of the 10-year-old master brought him fame in the immediate surroundings, and at the age of 15 the young man began to study painting professionally (mastering the technique of watercolors and copying English engravings), under the guidance of the local artist Stanislav Goren. Then he studied for a while in the workshop of Jerome in Paris.

Redon Odilon was an extremely suspicious person, did not believe in his own talent, which contributed to his weak popularity. There was a case when in 1868 one of his paintings was approved by the commission of the Parisian salon, but at the last moment the artist was frightened and took the job.

In Paris

Positively on Redon Odilona influenced service in the army (1870) and participation in the Franco-Prussian War: in the character of the young man appeared lacking confidence. Great influence on the further definition of the life of the Frenchman was the work of Leonardo da Vinci, Eugene Delacroix, Francisco Goya and Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, as well as familiarity and fellowship with the famous schedule of Rodolph Breden. After the war Odilon Redon permanently moved to Paris, where he began to engage in coal drawings and lithography. These black and white works ("blacks" - as the painter called them) were issued in small series: "Apocalypse of St. John", "In Dream", "Origins", "Edgaru Po", "Night", "Gustave Flaubert" , "Flowers of Evil", "In Honor of Goya", "Dreams", "Temptations" (1879-1896).

Fantastic world of Odilon

The work of Redon Odilon was greatly influenced by his friendship with botanist Armano Clavo, who studied the connection between animals and plants. The French painter was furiously carried away by the idea of animating the whole nature and sensitivity of plants. The dreamer primarily, who embodied phantasmagoric and spiritual images in painting and graphics, Redon Odilon drew a lot and wrote from nature. First of all, the work of a talented master reflected the creation of his fantasy: a player with a huge dice on his shoulders, or plants with an eye and a human head. The graphic artist depicted images of world evil, the brightest of which was the image of a spider with a human, maliciously smiling face. In parallel, the author draws strict and bright images of children, old people and young women, through whom he conveys such elusive things as purity and spirituality, wisdom and nobility of old age, chastity of childhood.

Odilon Redon: paintings

From the 1890s, the painter increasingly turned to color, oil paints and pastels, painted walls of monasteries and villas with glue paint, made cardboard for tapestries and decorated screens. His work is centered around the central motifs of the ghostly world, whether it be the eye, the boat, the flower, which has become the "face" of the human face. Or the motive for the birth of living beings, with the arrival of which the world is filled with suffering, malice, envy, greed and death.

Among the characteristic works can be identified the work "Cyclops" (1898), "Black Vase with Flowers" (1909), "Woman Among Flowers" (1909), "The Birth of Venus" (1910). His paintings of 1900-1910 are more typical images of bouquets in vases and women among flowers. Redon Odilon saturates his works with light, makes the paint burn and shine, seeks to find a form of artistic expression that can awaken in the viewer the desire to think and analyze.

The artist also applied to ancient subjects. The birth of Venus on the eponymous canvas seems to occur in front of the viewer: like a burst of life-giving energy, the goddess appears from the sea foam.

Odilon Redon quite often acted as a critic in print media, reproaching the Impressionists and late Romantics for portraying what was happening inside the person himself. He believed that internal fantasies would be convincing only if they followed the "laws of life".

The largest exhibition in its entire career, the French artist arranged in 1913, as part of the New York Armory Show in New York.

The famous painter died on July 6, 1916, at the age of 76.