Redon’s monsters
Odilon Redon set out in his dark prints to make ‘the invisible visible’. His etchings and lithographs are filled with imaginary creatures that seem to have stepped straight out of his unconscious, and he did indeed use his work as a gateway to the depths of his own soul.
We can only guess as to the meaning of these enigmatic prints. Like most Symbolist artists, Redon resisted any attempt to interpret his work, as this would diminish its mysticism.
The symbolism of everyday life
The quiet interiors and landscapes of the Nabis seem a little ordinary compared with Redon’s bizarre fantasy images.
Nevertheless, they too sought to reach beneath the surface of everyday life in their prints. They used a certain mood to enable the viewer to sense the hidden essences and emotions at play.
The Nabis stylised visible reality by translating their impressions into a harmonious (or disharmonious) combination of colours, lines, and surfaces – to which colour lithography lent itself perfectly.
Odilon Redon, Par la fente du mur, une tête de mort fut projetée from the series Le juré, 1887
Maurice Denis, Our Souls, with Languorous Gestures (Nos âmes en des gestes lents), 1899
Further reading
- Pierre-Louis Mathieu, La génération symboliste, Geneva, 1990
- Henri Dorra (ed.), Symbolist Art Theories. A Critical Anthology, Berkeley, 1994
- Pierre Théberge et al., Lost Paradise. Symbolist Europe, exhib. cat.,
Montreal (Montreal Museum of Fine Arts), 1995