The Secret World of Odilon Redon 1840-1916 - ACE043.2

Photograph of Odilon Redon. Caption : "‘Parle, voix lointaine, monde secret…’ – Brentano." Caption: "Odilon Redon was a contemporary of the Impressionists, but he did not share their aims. Though he is not widely known, he was greatly admired during his lifetime by such men as Gauguin and Mallarmé, his closest friend, and his work has been of fundamental importance for twentieth century painting. Redon spent a solitary childhood at a small estate near Bordeaux. Later in life he returned there every summer for many years, and under its influence did the charcoal drawings which, with his lithographs, were his first significant work. Apart from some early paintings, Redon made almost no use of colour until he was almost sixty, and all his important painting was done late in life. When over seventy, at the Abbaye de Fontfroide near Narbonne, he painted his most ambitious project: two large wall paintings of ‘Day’ and ‘Night’, which summarise his work. The commentary which follows is taken entirely from Redon’s own notebooks." Photographs of Redon. Sketches. Redon VO talks of giving information about himself and his art. The Peyrelebade, near Bordeaux, estate where Redon spent his childhood; VO describing it and himself. Images of childhood, the estate, and "things seen in the clouds". Redon talks about his first lithographs (1879) being copies of things he drawn earlier. The world of dreams and "torments of the imagination". "Bringing to life … improbable beings and creating them according to the laws of probability."