Odilon Redon

Odilon Redon (April 22, 1840 – July 6, 1916) was a Symbolist painter, born in Bordeaux, Aquitaine, France.

Redon started drawing as a young child, and at the age of 10 he was awarded a drawing prize at school. At age 15, he began to study drawing but on the insistence of his father switched to architecture. Any career in architecture ended when he failed to pass the entrance exams at Paris’ Ecole des Beaux-Arts but eventually he studied there under Jean-Leon Gerome (1824-1904).

Back home in his native Bordeaux, he took up sculpture, and Rodolphe Bresdin instucted him in etching and lithography.

However, joining the army in 1870 to serve in the Franco-Prussian War interrupted his artistic career.

At the end of the war, he moved to Paris, working almost exclusively in charcoal and lithography. It would not be until 1878 before his work gained any recognition with Guardian Spirit of the Waters, and he published his first album of lithographs, titled Dans le Rêve, in 1879. Still, Redon remained relatively unknown until the appearance in 1884 of a cult novel by Joris-Karl Huysmans titled, A rebours (Against Nature). The story featured a decadent aristocrat who collected Redon's drawings.

In the 1890s, he began to use pastel and oils, which dominated his works for the rest of his life. In 1899, he exhibited with the Les Nabis at Durand-Ruel's.

In 1903 he was awarded the Legion of Honor.

His popularity increased when a catalogue of etchings and lithographs was published by Andre Mellerio in 1913 and that same year, he was given the largest single representation at the New York Armory Show.

The paintings are the excellent portrayal of the events and scenes that we see around us. The painters are the best cameras of the world. They reproduce many different types of pictures. They even draw imaginary pictures that do not exist in this world. We tend to use both thinned oil paints and dense oil paints. Masterpieces can be dyed more than once, but each time it may be different from the existing paintings.h

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