id: 124433 accession number: 1945.389 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1945.389 updated: 2022-02-18 10:00:35.296000 Brünnhilde in Twilight of the Gods, 1894. Odilon Redon (French, 1840-1916). Lithograph; image: 38 x 29.2 cm (14 15/16 x 11 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of William Mathewson Milliken, in memory of H. Oothout Milliken 1945.389 title: Brünnhilde in Twilight of the Gods title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1894 creation date earliest: 1894 creation date latest: 1894 current location: creditline: Gift of William Mathewson Milliken, in memory of H. Oothout Milliken copyright: --- culture: France, 19th century technique: lithograph department: Prints collection: PR - Lithograph type: Print find spot: catalogue raisonne: Mellerio 130 --- 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: Image: 38 x 29.2 cm (14 15/16 x 11 1/2 in.) state of the work: I/I edition of the work: edition of 80 support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Art Nouveau in France opening date: 1979-03-01T05:00:00 Art Nouveau in France. The Cleveland Museum of Art (March 1-September 1, 1979). 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 --- PROVENANCE William Mathewson Milliken [1889-1978], Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: ?-1945 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1945- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: This is the second lithograph Redon created depicting Brünnhilde. The first was published in the journal la Revue wagnérienne and shows her as a fierce warrior with a helmet, shield, and armor. digital description: wall description: This print shows Odilon Redon’s passion for the music of 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner. Brünnhilde is a main character in the final chapter of Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung, an epic four-part operatic piece composed over several decades. Created after Redon’s extensive experimentation with and mastery of lithography, the print reveals the medium’s similarity to drawing in the range of marks used to sketch its subject. Redon delicately outlined flowers in the background and crosshatched to highlight Brünnhilde’s face before turning his crayon on its side to darken her hair and chest. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Francis, Henry S. "Redon's 'Brünnehilde': A Lithograph." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 33, no. 6 (June 1946): 95
 page number: Mentioned: p. 95 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25141289 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: Brünnehilde. page number: Mentioned: p. 58 url: https://archive.org/details/Lithography/page/n65 --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1945.389/1945.389_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1945.389/1945.389_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1945.389/1945.389_full.tif