Is Symbolism the new starting point? Painter-theorist Maurice Denis introduces the great retrospective show dedicated by the Fondation Beyeler to enigmatic genius Odilon Redon
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- Odilon Redon, Papillons, 1910, Oil on canvas, 73,9 x 54,9 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Gift of Mrs. Werner E. Josten in memory of her husband, 1964
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- Odilon Redon Le Char d’Apollon, vers 1910 Huile avec pastel sur toile, 91,5 x 77 cm Musée d’Orsay, Paris
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- Odilon Redon Pandore, ca. 1914 Huile sur toile, 143,5 x 62,2 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Bequest of Alexander M. Bing, 1959
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- Odilon Redon Le Cyclope, 1914 Huile sur carton sur toile, 64 x 51 cm Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands Collection Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands
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- Odilon Redon Le Bouddha, 1906–1907 Pastel, 90 x 73 cm Musée d’Orsay, Paris
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- Odilon Redon Ophélie, 1900-1905 Pastel sur papier sur carton, 50,5 x 67,3 cm Dian Woodner Collection, New York
“I wished to copy nature – said Cézanne – “I could not. But I was satisfied when I had discovered that the sun, for instance, could not be reproduced, but that it must be represented by something else… by colour”. There is the definition of Symbolism such as we understood it about 1890. The older artists of that day, Gauguin above all, had a boundless admiration for Cézanne. I must add that they had at the same time the greatest esteem for Odilon Redon. Odilon Redon also had searched outside of the reproduction of nature and of sensation for the plastic equivalents of his emotions and his dreams. He, too, tried to remain a painter, exclusively a painter, while he was translating the radiance and gloom of his imagination.
According to “Art in Theory” (1993), French painter-theorist Maurice Denis (1870-1943) wrote this lines in September 1907, the year after Cézanne’s death (L’Occitane, Paris). He grasped the essence of Symbolism, which was at that time “a new conception of the purpose and methods of painting”, as Roger Fry wrote a few years later introducing his English translation of Denis’s essay (Burlington Magazine, XVI, London, January-February 1910). A great retrospective show dedicated to Odilon Redon’s significance as a forerunner of classic modernism will open next February,2 at the Fondation Beyeler, Basel. Recommended to young artists.
January 21, 2014
