id: 109147 accession number: 1927.306 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1927.306 updated: 2024-03-26 01:57:08.925000 Closed Eyes, 1890. Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916), printed by Becquet (French). Lithograph on China paper laid on wove paper; image: 31.2 x 24.2 cm (12 5/16 x 9 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland 1927.306 title: Closed Eyes title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1890 creation date earliest: 1890 creation date latest: 1890 current location: creditline: Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland copyright: --- culture: France, 19th century technique: lithograph on China paper laid on wove paper department: Prints collection: PR - Lithograph type: Print find spot: catalogue raisonne: Mellerio 107 --- 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. * Becquet (French) - printer --- measurements: Image: 31.2 x 24.2 cm (12 5/16 x 9 1/2 in.) state of the work: trial proof (before letters) edition of the work: edition of 100 support materials: description: China paper watermarks: description: wove paper watermarks: inscriptions: inscription: signed on stone, lower left: ODILON REDON; inscribed, at lower right, in graphite: Odilon Redon 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: Ways of Drawing Faces opening date: 1944-10-01T04:00:00 Ways of Drawing Faces. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 1, 1944-January 31, 1945). title: The Print Club of Cleveland, 1919 - 1969: Fifty Years in Review opening date: 1970-01-14T05:00:00 The Print Club of Cleveland, 1919 - 1969: Fifty Years in Review. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (January 14-March 31, 1970). title: The Milieu of Edvard Munch opening date: 1977-05-05T04:00:00 The Milieu of Edvard Munch. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 5-June 5, 1977). title: Charles Meryon, Odilon Redon, and Rodolphe Bresdin opening date: 1978-10-01T04:00:00 Charles Meryon, Odilon Redon, and Rodolphe Bresdin. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (October 1, 1978-April 1, 1979). title: Odilon Redon: Dream Creatures and Anemones opening date: 1984-08-21T04:00:00 Odilon Redon: Dream Creatures and Anemones. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 21-October 14, 1984). title: Contemporaries of the Pont-Aven Printmakers opening date: 1987-08-14T04:00:00 Contemporaries of the Pont-Aven Printmakers. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 14-September 27, 1987). title: Symbolist Prints opening date: 1991-11-05T05:00:00 Symbolist Prints. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 5, 1991-January 12, 1992). title: Drawn on Stone: 19th-Century Lithography opening date: 1993-09-25T04:00:00 Drawn on Stone: 19th-Century Lithography. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 25, 1993-February 20, 1994). 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). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * {'description': '"La Rêverie esthétique": Symbolist Works on Paper. Allen Memorial Art Museum (March 29 - May 22, 1988).', 'opening_date': '1988-03-29T00:00:00'} --- PROVENANCE (Marcel Guiot, Paris, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH) date: ?-1927 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1927- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS "'La Rêverie esthétique': Symbolist Works on Paper." Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin43, no. 1 (Summer 1988): 3-47. page number: Mentioned: p. 34, no. 35; Reproduced: pl. Xa url: Catalogue of an exhibition of the art of lithography: commemorating the sesquicentennial of its invention, 1798-1948. [Cleveland]: The Cleveland Museum of Art, November 11, 1948-January 2, 1949. Published as: Yeux clos. page number: Mentioned: p. 57; Reproduced: Plate XXXIV url: https://archive.org/details/Lithography/page/n113 The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 660 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1958/page/n122 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. page number: Reproduced: p. 181 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1966/page/n205 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. page number: Reproduced: p. 181 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n205 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. page number: Reproduced: p. 224 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n244 --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1927.306/1927.306_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1927.306/1927.306_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1927.306/1927.306_full.tif