Odilon Redon (1840-1916)

Redon's reputation as a literary artist and a romantic was confirmed by the "noirs" he produced in the 1880s. Works such as his album of lithographs Hommage à Goya demonstrate this. Accompanied by a prose poem, they describe a dream experience; the final plate shows the dark, deftly distinguished profile of a woman, and the words "On waking, I saw the Goddess of the Intelligible with her severe and hard profile." The lithographs of these years are haunting and melancholic. However, between 1880 and 1900, Redon began to work with pastels, and this brought a new warmth and serenity to his oeuvre. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his portraits. Once the female profile was suffused with subtle color tones, the overall effect is quite different.
The head of a woman seen in profile became a recurrent symbol in Redon's oeuvre. With this simple and effective image, reminiscent of the Pre-Raphaelites, Redon portrayed characters from literary and religious themes, although he often depicted mystery women. Femme de profil is one such work. The young woman, seen only in profile, appears as a vision. The warm yellows in the background illuminate the outline of her face and set off the glow on her delicate features. She seems demure and distant, almost other-worldly. The pastel portrait of Jeanne d'Arc (Wildenstein, vol. I, no. 240; fig. 1) which uses a vibrant red background to set off the outline of the woman's portrait exudes the same warmth and sense of calm, as does the portrait of Dante's Béatrice (Wildenstein, vol. I, no. 145). The delicate infusions of color in each, set against a serene female profile, are wonderfully evocative and steeped in symbolic meaning.

(fig. 1) Odilon Redon, Jeanne d’Arc, circa 1900. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.