Science, Society, and the Fantastic in the Work of Odilon Redon
By Barbara Larson
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“All of the artists whom Redon admired were distinguished by their craftsmanship, a quality that he emphasized in living nature as well as in art." ~ Robert M. Brain, ISIS
“Disturbing,” “hallucinatory”—words that evoke pathology rather than history— have long framed our understanding of Odilon Redon, a French artist admired by the Surrealists as a precursor in their exploration of the irrational. Larson does not attempt to deny him melancholia' while dismantling the interpretation that the cult of the irrational is the essential condition of his work.
Redon should be seen as a gifted mediator of a context in which new scientific ideas mingled with the fears of social and racial decadence widespread in France after the debacle of the Franco-Prussian War.
Armand Clavaud, a botanist who encouraged his interest in the mixture of botany, geology, zoology, and landscape studies then called Naturalism.
Some ofthe background for Redon’s
-concentration upon black-and-white graphic media
-his absorption of Darwin’s teachings, and
-interests in new trends in physiology, psychology, and microbiology.
Larson offers insight into Redon’s predilection for bizarre, polymorphous forms.
Redon's interpretation of late-nineteenth-century science meant not positivistic engagement with a stable material world, but rather the exploration of vast “invisible” realms, from microbes to electricity.
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| Crying Spider |
“The artist . . . will always be a special, isolated, solitary agent with an innate sense of organising matter.”
~Redon
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