id: 109138 accession number: 1927.299 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1927.299 updated: 2023-08-31 11:02:26.167000 Melancholy, c. 1868. Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916). Graphite on beige wove paper; sheet: 32.1 x 22 cm (12 5/8 x 8 11/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland 1927.299 title: Melancholy title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1868 creation date earliest: 1860 creation date latest: 1869 current location: creditline: Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland copyright: --- culture: France, 19th century technique: graphite on beige wove paper department: Drawings collection: DR - French type: Drawing find spot: catalogue raisonne: Wildenstein 576 --- CREATORS * Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916) - artist A leader of the symbolist movement in France, Odilon Redon was born in Bordeaux in 1840 and grew up in the surrounding region. During his early years he studied drawing, architecture, and the violin. A friendship with Armand Clavaud, a local botanist and philosopher, stimulated Redon's passion for romantic art and literature. In 1864, after a brief and discouraging period of instruction with Gérôme in Paris, Redon returned to Bordeaux, where he studied printmaking with Rodolphe Bresdin (1825-1885). Deploring the emphasis on rational, phenomenal experience in academic and naturalist art, Redon turned for inspiration to the imaginative paintings of Delacroix, the prints of Francisco José de Goya (1746-1828), and the poetry of Charles Baudelaire. In 1870, after military service in the Franco-Prussian War, Redon settled in Paris and produced his first Noirs. These visionary images, featuring floating eyes and severed heads born aloft on wings, reflect Redon's belief in the superiority of the imagination and fantasy, which he considered "the messenger of the unconscious." After producing his initial Noirs in charcoal, Redon discovered a method of transferring his drawings to lithography in 1876. Throughout the 1880s he continued to use charcoal, etching, and lithography as his primary media, and he produced twelve lithography albums before abandoning the genre in the late 1890s. During the 1880s Redon emerged as a leader of the symbolist reaction against impressionism. The publication in 1879 of his first lithographic album, Dans le rêve, followed by his first solo exhibition in 1881, attracted the admiration of J. K. Huysmans, who included illustrations by Redon in his novel À rebours (1884). Around the same time, Redon developed a personal and artistic relationship with poet Stéphane Mallarmé. Increasingly drawn into the public arena, Redon helped organize the Société des Artistes Indépendants in 1884. In 1886 he participated in the last impressionist exhibition and began showing with Les XX in Brussels. Redon's antinaturalist, visionary, art inspired many symbolist and Nabi artists, including Gauguin and Vuillard. Maurice Denis praised Redon as "our Mallarmé," and in 1892 critic Albert Aurier described Redon as a leader of the new "idealistic" tendency in art. After 1890 the focus of Redon's activity shifted from monochromatic drawings and prints toward exploring color in richly worked pastels. His innovations in luminous color, as seen in the pastel and oil paintings he exhibited at the Galeries Durand-Ruel in 1900 were greatly admired by Henri Matisse (1869-1954) and the Fauves. Awarded the Legion of Honor in 1903, Redon continued his leadership role in the avant-garde and in 1904 became a founding member of the Salon d'Automne. In 1913 forty of his works were selected for exhibition in the Armory Show, the most by any artist. Redon died at his home in Paris in the summer of 1916. --- measurements: Sheet: 32.1 x 22 cm (12 5/8 x 8 11/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: description: beige wove paper (discolored) watermarks: inscriptions: inscription: signed, lower right, in graphite: Od.R translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: French Art Since Eighteen Hundred opening date: 1929-11-08T05:00:00 French Art Since Eighteen Hundred. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 8-December 8, 1929). title: Drawings from the Museum Collection opening date: 1937-02-10T05:00:00 Drawings from the Museum Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 10-April 28, 1937). title: Drawings from the Museum Collection opening date: 1940-07-11T04:00:00 Drawings from the Museum Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 11-October 3, 1940). title: 19th and 20th Century French Art and Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Loans opening date: 1943-06-22T04:00:00 19th and 20th Century French Art and Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Loans. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 22-September 1, 1943). title: 40th Anniversary Exhibition of the Print Club of Cleveland opening date: 1959-12-03T05:00:00 40th Anniversary Exhibition of the Print Club of Cleveland. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (December 3, 1959-January 20, 1960). title: The Lessons of the Academy opening date: 1983-02-08T05:00:00 The Lessons of the Academy. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 8-May 29, 1983). title: Treasures on Paper opening date: 1988-05-10T04:00:00 Treasures on Paper. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 10-July 24, 1988). title: Collecting Dreams: Odilon Redon opening date: 2021-09-19T04:00:00 Collecting Dreams: Odilon Redon. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 19, 2021-January 23, 2022). title: Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2023-01-20T05:00:00 Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 20-April 30, 2023). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * Odilon Redon (1840–1916): Pastels and Drawings. Jacques Seligmann & Co., Inc., New York (October 22–November 10, 1951); Cleveland Museum of Art (November 29, 1951–January 20, 1952); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (February 1–March 1, 1952). * Odilon Redon: Prince of Dreams 1840–1916. Art Institute of Chicago (July 2–September 18, 1994); Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (October 20, 1994–January 15, 1995); Royal Academy of Arts, London (February 16–May 21, 1995). --- PROVENANCE (Kraushaar Galleries, New York, NY, sold to the Print Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH) date: ?-1927 footnotes: citations: Print Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1927 footnotes: citations: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1927- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: Redon incorporated fantastical details into his mountainous landscape, including a small creature seen faintly directly above the woman and a profile that vaguely appears in the shadows next to her. digital description: Odilon Redon grew up near the massive Pyrénées mountains in southern France and their image recurred throughout his work. In a series of drawings made during the 1870s, Redon used the craggy surface and infinite reach of his native landscape to evoke a sense of solitude and isolation. The woman seen here, for example, leans forward and casts her eyes downward as if in resignation. wall description: Odilon Redon grew up near France’s Pyrenees Mountains, and they serve as a recurring image throughout his work. This drawing belongs to an early series in which the artist used this landscape to convey isolation and features a woman who leans forward with sorrowful eyes downcast. Fine, delicate lines mirror the work’s emotional tenor. The sheet was one of many given to the museum by the Print Club of Cleveland, founded in 1919 by Ralph King, the CMA’s first drawings curator. The gift built on the spectacular publicity that the museum generated in 1926 by acquiring two pastels by Redon, on view nearby. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Odilon Redon (1840–1916): Pastels and Drawings. Exh. cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1951. page number: Mentioned: p. 17, no. 33 url: Rewald, John. "Quelques notes et documents sur Odilon Redon." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 48 (November 1956): 81-124. page number: Reproduced: p. 119 url: Wildenstein, Alec. Odilon Redon, catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint et dessiné. Paris: Wildenstein Institute, 1992. page number: Mentioned: vol. I, p. 227, no. 576; Reproduced: p. 228 url: Druick, Douglas W., Gloria Groom, Fred Leeman, Kevin Sharp, MaryAnne Stevens, Harriet K. Stratis, and Peter Kort Zegers. Odilon Redon: Prince of Dreams, 1840–1916. Exh. cat. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1994. page number: Mentioned: p. 62-63, 436, no. 21; Reproduced: p. 62 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1927.299/1927.299_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1927.299/1927.299_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1927.299/1927.299_full.tif