Noirs, Prints and Drawings

Odilon Redon Noirs, Prints and Drawings: Introduction

Odilon Redon's black works do not simply form a gloomy prelude to his later colour. They are an extensive practice in which material, process and imagination are inseparable. Redon used the word noirs—blacks—for charcoal drawings and black-and-white prints whose darkness creates more than outlines and shadows. A head can surface from a smoky field, an eye can become a flying body, and a plant or marine creature can look both observed and invented. The image remains legible, yet its setting never becomes fully secure.^[1][3]

That uncertainty was made by hand. Charcoal could be deposited, spread, fixed, removed and brightened; lithography could translate some of its tonal range while adding the serial possibilities of a printed portfolio. Redon's subjects came from nature, literature, religion, myth and contemporary science, but he resisted treating the results as straightforward illustrations. The noirs are best understood as constructed encounters between a recognisable fragment and a darkness that keeps changing its meaning.^[2][3]

At a Glance

• What “noir” meansRedon's own term for works in black, especially charcoal drawings and black-and-white lithographs; it does not describe every drawing he made.^[1][3]
• Principal materialsvaried charcoals, black chalk or Conté crayon, occasional pastel, white chalk and prepared or coloured papers.^[1][2][8]
• Characteristic methodsstumping, rubbing or wiping, erasing, scraping, incising, lifting and white heightening, used in different combinations.^[1][2][10]
• First major print portfolioIn Dreams (Dans le rêve), published in 1879 as ten lithographs.^[5][12]
• Literary relationshipsEdgar Allan Poe and Gustave Flaubert supplied atmospheres, titles and points of departure rather than scripts for literal illustration.^[3][5][6]
• Career continuitycharcoal became less dominant after the mid-1890s, but its outlines, veils and emerging forms continued within Redon's colour work.^[1][3]

Selected Odilon Redon works on paper

Contents

1. Introduction
2. What Redon Meant by a Noir
3. Charcoal Was a Family of Materials
4. Drawing by Addition and Removal
5. Bresdin, Fantin-Latour and the Turn to Lithography
6. Lithography Was More Than Reproduction
7. Portfolios, Authors and Suggestive Titles
8. Editions, Proofs and States
9. Eyes, Heads, Hybrids and Scientific Forms
10. Black Continued Inside Colour

What Redon Meant by a Noir

Calling these works “black drawings” is accurate but incomplete. Redon's term joins colour to a way of thinking. The Musée d'Orsay notes that he devoted himself primarily to drawings and prints until the middle of the 1890s, exhibiting the unusual charcoal works in Paris from the beginning of the 1880s. In his own published reflections, charcoal mattered because it enabled research into chiaroscuro and what could not be directly seen. Black was therefore both a substance on paper and a field in which an image might appear.^[3]

The category still needs boundaries. A landscape study, a graphite sketch or a later pastel is not automatically a noir merely because Redon drew it. Conversely, a lithograph may belong to the practice even though its ink was printed rather than rubbed directly onto the final sheet. What unites the central works is their sustained reliance on black as an active expressive condition. Darkness may thicken into a body, loosen into fog or leave a pale form suspended between presence and disappearance.^[1][4]

The distinction prevents a common misunderstanding: the noirs are not transcripts of dreams. Some contain dreamlike conjunctions, but Redon repeatedly located invention in attentive contact with nature. Orsay's account stresses his study of real forms and his interest in botany, zoology and the newly visible worlds revealed by science. His procedure was transformative. Observation supplied a vocabulary; selection, combination and material handling made that vocabulary strange.^[3]

Charcoal Was a Family of Materials

Museum descriptions show that “charcoal” can conceal a complicated surface. Getty technical research explains that nineteenth-century artists had access to an expanding range of black media, including fabricated chalks, Conté crayon and lithographic crayon. These can resemble one another to the naked eye while differing in texture and composition. Scientific imaging and spectroscopy are now helping conservators distinguish materials that older catalogues sometimes grouped together.^[2]

Redon's own sheets demonstrate this variety. The Met records Pegasus and Bellerophon of about 1888 as charcoal, charcoal with water wash, white chalk and Conté crayon, with highlights produced by erasure, on buff blue-toned paper that has darkened. Its materials include dry particles, a fluid application, a denser crayon and a light recovered from the support.^[8] Armor of 1891 uses charcoal and Conté crayon; the Met draws attention to the tonal distance between the helmet's velvety dark and the pallor of the face.^[9]

Prepared and coloured papers were not neutral backgrounds. A cream sheet altered toward gold, a brown support or a blue-toned paper could supply a middle value before Redon added either black or white. The support might glow through a thin veil, disappear beneath compressed darkness, or become the light of a face after surrounding areas were worked. The 1878 Eye-Balloon is currently catalogued by MoMA as charcoal and chalk on coloured paper; the material relation between diffuse black and the toned sheet is central to its charged sky.^[4]

No single recipe applies across the noirs. Getty's selected works include charcoal mixed with powdered charcoal, black chalk and touches of pastel, and document stumping and removal on particular sheets.^[1] Exact museum medium lines matter because appearance alone cannot reliably distinguish vine charcoal from a compressed stick, black chalk from a crayon, or original paper colour from later change. Redon's range is impressive precisely because it was built from specific, variable combinations rather than a mysterious universal “black medium.”

Drawing by Addition and Removal

Redon developed forms through both depositing black and taking it away. Stumping spreads loose particles with a soft tool, suppressing the obvious stroke and producing a continuous haze. Rubbing or wiping can broaden a tone; a stick or crayon can restore a firm contour. Erasing, scraping and lifting expose the support again, while an incised line cuts through a dark layer. White chalk can add a highlight rather than merely revealing paper. Current museum records document these techniques in different combinations, not as a checklist used on every sheet.^{[1][2][10][11]}

This back-and-forth helps explain the peculiar light of the noirs. In the Guardian Spirit of the Waters, the immense head does not sit cleanly in front of a uniformly shaded background. Its pale volume is surrounded by worked black, and the small boat below gives the apparition a disquieting scale.^[10][11] In Eye-Balloon, MoMA identifies blurred and erased charcoal around the airborne eye as the means by which the sky acquires a nebulous, foreboding charge. Atmosphere is not an empty area around the subject; it is part of the subject's making.^[4]

These methods also complicate the idea of drawing as decisive line. Redon could draw an edge, bury it, recover part of it and allow the remainder to dissolve. A face may be sharply marked at the eyelid but lose its cheek in powder. A creature may have enough anatomy to seem possible while its environment refuses measurement. The visible form and the surrounding darkness remain mutually dependent.

Bresdin, Fantin-Latour and the Turn to Lithography

Rodolphe Bresdin was crucial to Redon's early understanding of printmaking. In Bordeaux, the older artist introduced him to the concentrated world of the etched plate and to an art in which minute marks could sustain fantastic landscapes. A historical MoMA catalogue nevertheless cautions against turning that relationship into a simple account of Redon's mature lithography. Redon practised etching intermittently, while charcoal became his preferred field of invention through the later 1860s and 1870s.^[12]

Henri Fantin-Latour provided a later practical impetus. Redon recalled that Fantin-Latour showed him lithographic crayon and transfer paper and suggested multiplying charcoal designs through lithography. The Lemercier workshop in Paris supplied professional printing expertise. This sequence matters: Bresdin's example established printmaking as an imaginative art, but Redon's characteristic lithographs developed after a decade of intensive charcoal practice and with further technical guidance.^[5][12]

The first substantial result was In Dreams (Dans le rêve) in 1879, a portfolio of ten lithographs. Several images derived from or varied earlier drawings. That origin did not make them mechanical copies. Redon had to restate tonal masses, lines and pale openings in a medium designed for inking and repeated impressions. The portfolio announced that the intimate scale and uncertain spaces of the charcoal studio could circulate as a deliberately ordered printed work.^[1][12]

Lithography Was More Than Reproduction

Lithography depends on the opposition of grease and water on a prepared stone or comparable matrix. The artist draws with a greasy medium; after processing, ink adheres to the drawn areas while dampened blank areas resist it. Paper receives the image under pressure. Redon could also work on transfer paper, which allowed a drawing made away from the stone to be transferred for printing. Because direct and transfer methods can produce similar impressions, the method should not be guessed from a reproduction.^[7][12]

The process suited Redon's developed language of black. MoMA stresses lithography's capacity for fine line, deep darks and close gradations, as well as its ability to issue an image in multiples.^[5] Yet the matrix demanded decisions unlike a one-off charcoal sheet. Tonal transitions had to survive processing and printing; each impression emerged through the work of artist, printer, paper and ink. In many examples a thin sheet described as chine appliqué was printed and attached to a stronger backing sheet, giving the image a subtly different surface from the surrounding paper.^[5][6]

Redon's 1882 The Eye like a Strange Balloon Mounts toward Infinity demonstrates why lithography should be treated as an independent medium. It revisits the eye-balloon conception, but it is not the same object as the 1878 charcoal drawing. MoMA records the print as a lithograph on chine appliqué, printed by Lemercier and published by G. Fischbacher. Its design is reconfigured for the stone and belongs to the six-print homage To Edgar Poe.^[5][12] The active artwork article in this guide concerns the 1878 drawing; the 1882 lithograph is a related reinvention, not another date or state of that sheet.

Portfolios, Authors and Suggestive Titles

Redon often organised lithographs in albums. A portfolio could create rhythm through sequence: a pale apparition after a dense plate, a single floating organ after a crowded hybrid, or a caption that changes how the next image is anticipated. The ordering encourages association without producing a continuous illustrated plot. Getty's current gallery text discusses eleven print portfolios, while MoMA describes albums as the principal setting for many of his lithographs. Such figures depend on definitions, so they should not be converted into a definitive total for his complete printed output.^[1][5]

The 1882 To Edgar Poe is an homage rather than a line-by-line visual edition of one Poe story. Poe's name establishes a literary climate—psychological pressure, the uncanny and unstable perception—but the strange eye-balloon had already existed as a charcoal idea in 1878. The album shows how a title can relocate an image within a new network of associations.^[4][5]

Gustave Flaubert prompted a different, sustained engagement. Redon made three lithographic projects connected with The Temptation of Saint Anthony. MoMA's 1896 impression of …And Eyes without Heads Were Floating like Mollusks belongs to the third series, a portfolio of twenty-three lithographs published by Ambroise Vollard and printed by Blanchard.^[6] The caption originates in Flaubert's hallucinatory text, yet the image does not simply stage a conventional scene. Detached eyes, marine softness and black space turn a verbal fragment into a new visual event.

This distinction accords with Redon's resistance to being called merely literary or illustrative. Orsay notes that, despite references to Shakespeare and Poe, he rejected a narrowly illustrative account of his work.^[3] Words can trigger attention, establish a tonal key or sharpen an enigma. They need not close down the image by explaining it. That open exchange between caption and form is central to Redon's place within Symbolism, dreams and imagination.

Editions, Proofs and States

A printed image exists through impressions, and apparently identical impressions may have different positions in its history. An edition is the group authorised for publication, normally planned in a stated quantity. A proof may precede or sit outside that numbered group. A state records a change to the matrix: if Redon altered the stone or transfer and printed again, the later impression could represent another state. Edition, proof and state are therefore related terms, not synonyms.^[5][7]

Object records provide concrete checks. MoMA's impression of the 1882 eye lithograph is a proof without letters outside an edition of fifty.^[5] Its absence of lettering distinguishes that impression from published examples carrying text, but it remains a lithograph of the same design rather than the 1878 charcoal. The 1896 Eyes without Heads plate is recorded as one of twenty-three in the portfolio, in an edition of fifty, with Vollard as publisher and Blanchard as printer.^[6] Those facts belong to those impressions and should not be projected onto every print in an album.

This is also why approximate lifetime totals must remain approximate. MoMA offers a broad estimate of close to thirty etchings and roughly two hundred lithographs, while older catalogues arrive at nearby but not identical figures.^[5][12] Counts can differ according to states, trial proofs, posthumous impressions and what a compiler treats as a separate work. The responsible conclusion is that printmaking was extensive and central to Redon's reputation—not that one summary number settles the catalogue.

Eyes, Heads, Hybrids and Scientific Forms

Redon's recurrent eye is an organ of vision detached from ordinary bodily scale. In Eye-Balloon it becomes a vehicle; in Eyes without Heads a group of eyes floats with mollusc-like softness. An eye can watch, travel or expose the viewer to being watched. Its recurrence does not prove a single fixed symbol. Each work changes the organ's relation to body, space, caption and medium.^[4][6]

Heads behave similarly. They emerge without shoulders, hover in aureoles or join bodies that belong to fish, plants and insects. Hybrids can seem fantastic while retaining persuasive anatomy. That tension connects Redon's imagination with empirical looking. Orsay emphasises the importance of natural forms and nineteenth-century botany and zoology to his inventions.^[3] The microscopic and marine worlds offered structures that were real but unfamiliar to ordinary vision—cells, tendrils, membranes and drifting organisms that could be combined with human features.

The noirs therefore need not be forced into a choice between science and dream. Redon could begin from a recognisable eye, skull, cactus or mollusc and alter its scale, context or attachment. The result may resemble an organism newly discovered in darkness. It obeys enough visual logic to hold together while refusing the normal world in which its parts would be separated. That balance is one reason the creatures remain disturbing: they look invented, but not arbitrary.

Black Continued Inside Colour

By the mid-1890s Redon was increasingly turning to pastel and painting, and Orsay says he gradually abandoned the noirs as a dominant practice.^[3] “Gradually” is essential. Pastel was another dry, powdery medium, and charcoal could remain beneath or beside colour. Dark contours, rubbed passages and forms emerging from undefined fields survived the change in palette. The later work did not cancel the material intelligence acquired in black.^[1]

Readers comparing these works with Redon's paintings and pastels should look for continuity as well as contrast. A late flower may glow instead of looming, but it can still float against an indeterminate atmosphere. A coloured head can retain the isolation of a charcoal apparition. The noirs established a durable visual grammar: emergence, suspension, unstable scale and the productive incompleteness of surrounding space.

How to Look at a Noir

Begin by separating the object from its title. Identify what is actually visible—perhaps an eye, a head, a boat, a stem—before allowing the caption to guide interpretation. Then examine the support. Where does its tone remain exposed, and where has black become dense enough to feel opaque? A pale area may be untouched paper, an erased passage or added white; the museum record can prevent a confident but false technical diagnosis.^[2][8][10]

Next, follow changes of edge. Notice where a line is asserted, softened by stumping, cut through a dark field or lost altogether. In a print, compare broad grainy tones with fine linear marks and remember that printer, edition and paper affect the impression. Finally, step back. Redon's technique matters not as virtuoso display by itself, but because accumulations and removals make the image oscillate between object and atmosphere.

Researched works directory

This searchable evidence census was assembled from public museum records and a reproducible Wikidata snapshot. It is not a catalogue raisonné, a claim to complete oeuvre coverage, or a substitute for Alec Wildenstein's printed catalogue, which was not consulted for this directory.

490 artworks

Search artworks Medium All media Drawing Painting Reset

Name	Date	Medium
A La Vieillesse (To Old Age)	1886	Print
A Madman in a Dismal Landscape	1885	Print
A Woman Reading a Book or Reading	1914	Painting
Allégorie : un arbre rouge non rougi par le soleil	1905	Painting
Alsace	1914	Painting
Andromeda	1907	Painting
Andromeda	1912	Painting
Andromeda enchained	1905	Painting
Anémones	Date unknown	Painting
Anemones and Tulips	1902	Painting
Animals at the Bottom of the Sea	Date unknown	Painting
Antoine: Quel Est Le But de Tout Cela? ...	Date unknown	Print
Apache (Man on Horseback)	Date unknown	Painting
Apache (Man on Horseback II)	Date unknown	Painting
Apollo	1905	Painting
Apollo's chariot	1910	Painting
Apollon vainqueur du serpent Python	1872	Painting
Apollonius	1896	Drawing
Apparition	1905	Painting
Apparition	1907	Painting
Apres cela je vis descendre du ciel un ange qui avait la clef de l'abime, et une grande chaine en sa main (And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand)	1899	Print
Arabe musicien	1893	Painting
Arbre dans la lande	Date unknown	Painting
Arbre (Tree)	1892	Print
Arbres sur un fond jaune	1901	Painting
Ari	1898	Print
Armor	1891	Drawing
At the Bottom of the Sea	1905	Painting
Au réveil j’aperçus la Déesse de l’Intelligible au profil sévère et dur [Bij het ontwaken zag ik de godin van het begrijpelijke in een streng en hard profiel], uit de reeks Hommage à Goya. 6 lithographies par Odilon Redon	1885	Print
Autoportrait en buste	1876	Painting
Bain de Venus	1900	Painting
Barbizon en automne	Date unknown	Painting
Baronne de Domecy	1900	Painting
Baronne Robert de Domecy	1900	Painting
Barques	1885	Painting
Barques dans le port	1880	Painting
Battle with the dragon	1907	Painting
Beatrice	1885	Painting
Béatrice	1897	Print
Bell-Tower Keeper	Date unknown	Painting
Black Sun	1900	Painting
Bloemstilleven	1901	Painting
Boqueteau	Date unknown	Painting
Bouddha dans sa jeunesse	Date unknown	Painting
Bouleaux à Bièvres	Date unknown	Painting
Bouquet au vase noir	Date unknown	Painting
Bouquet de fleurs	1900	Painting
Bouquet de fleurs	1908	Painting
Bouquet de fleurs au mimosa	Date unknown	Painting
Bouquet in a Chinese Vase	1912	Painting
Bouquet of Flowers	1902	Painting
Bouquet of flowers	1904	Painting
Bouquet of Flowers in a Green Vase	1915	Painting
Breton Village	1890	Painting
Brunnhilde	1894	Print
Butterflies	1910	Painting
C'est le Diable	1888	Print
C'est moi, Jean, qui ai vu et qui ai oie ces choses (And I John saw these things and heard them	1899	Print
C'etait un voile, un empriente (It was a veil, an imprint)	1891	Print
Cain and Abel	1886	Print
Caïn et Abel	Date unknown	Painting
Caliban, petit monstre ou gnome	1881	Drawing
Calvary	1895	Painting
Carnations	Date unknown	Drawing
Carton de vitrail	1911	Painting
Cavalier Galopant (Galloping Horseman)	1866	Print
Cellule Auriculaire	1894	Print
Cellule Auriculaire (Auricular Cell)	1894	Print
Centaur visant les Nues (Centaur aiming at the Clouds)	1895	Print
Chaumière bretonne	Date unknown	Painting
Chemin près de la mer	Date unknown	Painting
Cheval aile (Winged Horse)	1894	Print
Cheval cabré sur une cime	Date unknown	Painting
Christ	1887	Print
Christ and the Samaritan Woman (The White Flower Bouquet)	1895	Painting
Christ on the cross	1910	Painting
Ciel couvert sur une lande	Date unknown	Painting
Citroen en paprika	1901	Painting
Cliff Scene	1895	Painting
Closed Eyes	1890	Painting
Closed Eyes (Yeux Clos)	1890	Print
Colline, près de Royan	Date unknown	Painting
Combat équestre	1910	Painting
Composition à trois personnages (Flagellation ?)	Date unknown	Painting
Composition: Flowers	Date unknown	Painting
Composition: Flowers without a Vase	Date unknown	Painting
Conque marine	Date unknown	Painting
Conversation mystique	Date unknown	Painting
copie d'après 'La chasse aux lions' de Delacroix	1865	Painting
Copie d'après 'La Grèce sur les ruines de Missolonghi' de Delacroix	Date unknown	Painting
Coquelicots	1885	Painting
Couverture - Frontispice	1890	Print
Crucifixion	Date unknown	Painting
Cul-de-Lampe	1890	Print
Dans l'Ombre des Gens Pleurent et Prient Entourés d'Autres Qui Les Exhortent	Date unknown	Print
Dans mon rêve, je vis au ciel un visage de mystère	1885	Print
Dante and Beatrice	1914	Painting
De oude Ridder	1896	Print
De Strijdwagen van Apollo	Date unknown	Painting
Den helige Antonius, bröstbild	1906	Drawing
Des Fleurs Tombent, et la Tête d'un Python Parait	Date unknown	Print
Des Peuples Divers Habitent Les Pays De L'Océan	Date unknown	Print
Die Kathedrale - 13080 - Bavarian State Painting Collections	1914	Painting
Druidesse	1891	Print
Druidesse	1892	Print
Dunes	Date unknown	Painting
Edouard Vuillard	1900	Print
Een man van het volk. Tekening voor een illustratie in Le Juré van Edmond Picard	1887	Drawing
Eerbetoon aan Goya	1895	Painting
Elle Tire de Sa Poitrine une Éponge Toute Noire, La Couvre de Baisers	Date unknown	Print
Elle tire de sa poitrine une eponge toute noire, la couvre de baisers (She draws from her bosom a sponge, perfectly black, and covers it with kisses)	1896	Print
Escape to Egypt	Date unknown	Painting
Esquisse de vitrail	1905	Drawing
Et celui qui était monté dessus se nommait la Mort (And his name that sat on him was Death)	1899	Print
Et il avait dans sa main droit sept etoiles, et de sa bouch sortait une epee aigue a deux tranchants (And he had in his right hand seven stars; and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword)	1899	Print
Et Il Distingue Une Plaine Aride et Mamelonneuse	Date unknown	Print
Et il tombe du ciel une grande etoile ardente (And there fell a great star from heaven burning as it were a lamp)	1899	Print
Et l'homme parut, interrogeant le sol d'ou il sort et qui l'attire, il se fraya la voie vers (And Man appeared; questioning theearth from which he emerged and which attracts hi m, he made his way toward somber brightness)	1883	Print
Et la-bas l'idole astrale, l'Apotheose (And beyond, the star idol, the apotheosis)	1891	Print
Et le diable qui les seduisait, fut jete dans l'etang de feu et de soufre, ou es la b ete et le faux prophete (And the devil thatdeceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are)	1899	Print
Et le lia pour mille ans (And bound him a thousand years)	1899	Print
Et moi, Jean, Je vis la sainte cite, la nouvelle Jerusalem, qui descendait du ciel, d'aupres de dieu (And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven)	1899	Print
Et Partout ce Sont des Colonnes de Basalte,... La Lumière Tombe des Voutes	Date unknown	Print
...Et Que Des Vuex Sans Tête Flottaient Comme Des Mollusques	Date unknown	Print
Et un autre ange sortit du temple qui est au ciel, ayant lui aussi une faucille tranchante (And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, and he also having a sharp sickle)	1899	Print
Etruscan Vase with Flowers	1905	Painting
étude pour 'La chasse aux lions' d’après Delacroix	1867	Painting
Eve	1904	Painting
Evocation of Butterflies	1910	Painting
Evocation of Roussel	1912	Painting
Eye-Balloon	1878	Drawing
Falaise dominant la mer	Date unknown	Painting
Fantasia	1910	Painting
Fantasmagorie	Date unknown	Painting
Femme a la torque ornee (Woman with a plumed hat)	1900	Print
Femme de Profil (Profile of a Woman)	1900	Print
Femme en rouge	1898	Drawing
Ferme et rochers	Date unknown	Painting
Figure	1901	Painting
Figure cornue	Date unknown	Drawing
Figure devant un arbre	1894	Drawing
Figure portant une tête ailée	1876	Drawing
Figure, yellow flower	1901	Painting
Fireplace screen	1908	Painting
Fishing Boat	Date unknown	Painting
Fishing Boats: Memory of Venice	1908	Painting
Fishing Village, Brittany	1883	Painting
Five Butterflies	1912	Drawing
Fleurs	Date unknown	Painting
Fleurs dans un paysage de montagne avec visage	Date unknown	Painting
Fleurs dans un vase	1907	Painting
Fleurs dans un Vase bleu	1903	Painting
Fleurs dans un vase : pivoines	Date unknown	Painting
Fleurs des champs	1906	Painting
Fleurs étranges	1910	Painting
Flower Clouds	1903	Drawing
Flowers in a Japanese Vase	1908	Painting
Flowers in a Vase	1910	Painting
Flowers in Green Vase	Date unknown	Painting
Flowers: Poppies and Daisies	1867	Painting
Frieze of flowers and berries	1901	Painting
Frise de fleurs, marguerite rose	1901	Painting
Frontispiece	1889	Print
Gekruisigde Christus	Date unknown	Drawing
Geraniums and other Flowers in a Stoneware Jug	1910	Painting
Grand Bouquet	1901	Painting
Grand bouquet de fleurs des champs	1903	Painting
Grand panneau à décor végétal, fond clair	1901	Painting
Grand tapis de prière	1908	Painting
Green Death	Date unknown	Painting
Grey frieze	1901	Painting
Groupe de maisons blanches aux toits rouges	Date unknown	Painting
Guardian Spirit of the Waters	1878	Drawing
Hantise (Obsession)	1894	Print
Hélène (Ennoia)	Date unknown	Print
Hommage à Goya. 6 lithographies par Odilon Redon	1885	Print
Icarus	1890	Painting
Il Tombe Dans L'Abime, La Tête En Bas	Date unknown	Print
Il y eut aussi des êtres embryonnaires [Er waren ook embryonale wezens], uit de reeks Hommage à Goya. 6 lithographies par Odilon Redon	1885	Print
Il y eut des luttes et des vaines victoires (There were struggles and vain victories)	1883	Print
Il y eut peut-etre une vision premiere essayee dans la fleur (There was perhaps a first vision attempted in the flower	1883	Print
Immédiatement Surgissent Trois Déesses	Date unknown	Print
Initiation to Study—Two Young Ladies	1905	Painting
J'ai Quelquefois Aperçu Dans Le Ciel Comme Des Formes D'Esprits	Date unknown	Print
Jacob and the Angel	1907	Painting
Jacob's Struggle with the Angel	1910	Painting
Jacob Wrestling with the Angel	1907	Painting
Je Me Suis Enfoncé dans la Solitude. J'habitais L'Arbre Derrière Moi	Date unknown	Print
Je Suis Toujours la Grande Isis! Nul N'A Encore Soulevé Mon Fruit Est Le Soleil	Date unknown	Print
Je t'adore a l'egal de la voute nocturne. O vase de tristesse, o grande taciturne (I adore you as I adore the vault of the night sky, O vessel of sadness, O tall silent woman)	1890	Print
Jésus et la Samaritaine	Date unknown	Painting
L'Aile impuissante n'eleva point la bete en ces noirs espaces (The impotent wing did not lift the animal into that black space	1883	Print
L'Aile (The Wing)	1893	Print
L'ange déchu	1875	Painting
L'ange guerrier	1900	Painting
L'apparition	Date unknown	Painting
L'Araignée souriante	1881	Drawing
L'Arbre	Date unknown	Painting
L'Art Celeste (The Celestial Art)	1894	Print
L'Automne en Médoc	1897	Painting
L'Enlèvement de Ganymède	Date unknown	Painting
L'Intelligence Fut A Moi! Je Devins Le Buddha	Date unknown	Print
La Baie des Trépassés	Date unknown	Painting
La Barque	1900	Painting
La Barque rouge	1900	Painting
La Branche fleurie jaune	1901	Painting
La captive	1914	Painting
La Chute de Phaéton	1906	Painting
La Chute de Phaëton	1910	Painting
La fleur du marécage, une tête humaine et triste [De moerasbloem, een triest menselijk hoofd], uit de reeks Hommage à Goya. 6 lithographies par Odilon Redon	1885	Print
La Mare à Peyrelebade	1897	Painting
La Mer à Morgat	1883	Painting
La Mort: C'est Moi Te Rendes Sérieuse; Enlaçons-Nous	Date unknown	Print
La Mort d'Orphée	1908	Painting
La mort. Mon ironie dépasse toutes les autres!	1890	Painting
La Mort: Mon ironie depasse toutes les autres! (Death: My iron surpasses all others!)	1889	Print
La palme	Date unknown	Painting
La Peur (Fear)	1865	Print
La route de Bièvres	1890	Painting
La sirene sortit des flots vetue de dards (The Siren clothed in barbs, emerged from the waves	1883	Print
La Sulamite (The Shulamite)	1897	Print
La Vieille: Que Crains-tu? Un Large Trou Noir! Il Est Vide Peut-être?	Date unknown	Print
La Vieille: Que Crains-tu? Un large trou Noir! Il est vide peut-etre? (What are you afraid of? A wide black hole! It is empty, perhaps!)	1896	Print
Lady of the Flowers	1892	Painting
Lande avec une mare	Date unknown	Painting
Lande nue	Date unknown	Painting
Landscape	1872	Painting
Landscape	Date unknown	Painting
Landscape at Daybreak	1872	Painting
Landscape with Rocks near Royan	Date unknown	Painting
Large Vase with Flowers	1912	Painting
Le Bouddha	1895	Print
Le Bouddha	1906	Drawing
Le Buddha	1895	Print
Le Centaure à l'arc	Date unknown	Painting
Le Centaure aux coquelicots	1910	Painting
Le centaure et le dragon	Date unknown	Painting
Le char d'Apollon	1905	Painting
Le Chemin à Peyrelebade	Date unknown	Painting
Le Chêne	Date unknown	Painting
Le Coursier (The Race Horse)	1894	Print
Le Gue (The Ford)	1865	Print
Le Jour (Day)	1891	Print
Le Jour Enfin Parait,... Et Dans Le Disque Même Du Soleil, Rayonne La Face de Jésus-Christ	Date unknown	Print
Le Liseur (The reader)	1892	Print
Le paravent rouge (avec Pégase)	Date unknown	Painting
Le pavot noir	Date unknown	Painting
Le Petit Vase vert	Date unknown	Painting
Le Polype difforme flottait sur les rivages, sorte de cyclope souriant et hideux (Thedeformed polyp floated on the shores, a sort of smiling and hideous Cyclops	1883	Print
Le Regard	1901	Painting
Le Regard	1910	Painting
Le Rêve – Fleurs et Visage	1890	Drawing
Le Rocher rose	1880	Painting
Le Satyre au cynique sourire (The Satyr with the cynical smile)	1883	Print
Le Silence	1895	Painting
Le Vitrail	1906	Painting
Les Anemones (Still Life with Anemones)	1905	Painting
Les Bêtes De La Mer Rondes Comme Des Outres	Date unknown	Print
Les Croisés	Date unknown	Painting
Les Landes à Peyrelebade	1885	Painting
Les Parques	Date unknown	Painting
Les Quais à Bordeaux	1900	Painting
Les rochers (Rochers en Bretagne)	1875	Painting
Les Sciapodes: La tete le plus bas possible, c'est le secret du bonheur! (The Skiapods: "The head as low as possible, that is the secret of happiness!")	1889	Print
Les trois vases bleus	1910	Painting
Liserons et coquelicots dans un petit pichet vert	1866	Painting
Lueur precaire, une tete a l'infini suspendue(Precarious glimmering, a head suspended	1891	Print
Lumière	Date unknown	Print
Lumiere (Light)	1893	Print
Madame Arthur Fontaine (Marie Escudier, born 1865)	1901	Painting
Madame Odilon Redon	1882	Painting
maison avec deux arbres	Date unknown	Painting
Marguerites	1901	Painting
Marguerites et baies de Sorbier	1901	Painting
Maurice Denis	1903	Print
Médoc, arbres dans la prairie	Date unknown	Painting
Médoc, l'arbre	Date unknown	Painting
Médoc, la lande	Date unknown	Painting
Médoc, le bouquet d'arbres	Date unknown	Painting
Melancholy	1868	Drawing
Mes Baisers ont le Gout d'un Fruit Qui Se Fondrait Dans Ton Coeur!...	Date unknown	Print
Meules couvertes de bâches près d'un arbre	Date unknown	Painting
Mme Sabouraud (Thérèse Balandier)	1907	Drawing
Mon Enfant (My Child)	1892	Print
Montagnes des Pyrénées	Date unknown	Painting
Morgat vue des dunes de la Palue	Date unknown	Painting
moulin en Bretagne	Date unknown	Painting
Mystery	1910	Painting
Mystical Conversation	1896	Painting
Nasturtium	1905	Painting
Nature morte	1901	Painting
Navet	1875	Painting
Noce juive au Maroc	Date unknown	Painting
Nocturne	Date unknown	Painting
Nuages clairs sur une lande	Date unknown	Painting
Oannès	1905	Painting
Oannès	1908	Painting
Oannes and the Sphinx	1910	Painting
Oannès: Moi, La Première Conscience Du Chaos, J'ai Surgi de L'Abime Pour Durcir la Matière, Pour Régler les Formes	Date unknown	Print
Offrande	Date unknown	Painting
Old Man With Wings and Beard or Winged Old Man with a Long White Beard	1870	Drawing
Ophelia	1901	Painting
Ophelia	1905	Painting
Ophelia	Date unknown	Painting
Ophelia among the Flowers	c. 1905–1908	Drawing
Ophelia with a Blue Wimple in the Water	1900	Painting
Orphée	1910	Painting
Orphée	Date unknown	Painting
Orpheus	1903	Drawing
Pandora	1910/1912	Painting
Panneau décoratif	1902	Painting
Pansies	1905	Drawing
Papillons	1910	Painting
Paravent d'Olivier Sainsère	1903	Painting
Parfois on trouve un vieux flacon qui se souvient, d'ou jaillit toute vive une ame qui revient (Sometimes one finds an old reminiscing flask, whence issues in full life a returning soul)	1890	Print
Parsifal	1892	Print
Passage d'une Ame (Passage of a Spirit)	1891	Print
Paul Gauguin	1904	Painting
Paul Serusier	1903	Print
Paysage de Venise	1908	Painting
Pégase et l'Hydre	1900	Painting
Pegasus	1914	Painting
Pegasus and the Hydra	1907	Painting
Pegasus, the Horse on the Rock	1908	Drawing
Pélerin du monde sublunaire (Pilgrim of the sublunary world)	1891	Print
Perversité	1891	Print
Perversite (Perversity)	1891	Print
Petite fille tricotant	Date unknown	Painting
Peupliers à Peyrelebade	Date unknown	Painting
Peyrelebade	1888	Painting
Pierre Bonnard	1900	Print
Piety Beside a Red Tree	1905	Painting
Pivoine, géranium et lilas	Date unknown	Painting
Plante verte dans une urne	Date unknown	Painting
Pond in les Landes	1880	Painting
Port breton	Date unknown	Painting
Portrait d'Arï Redon au col marin	1897	Painting
Portrait d'Arï Redon en profil	1892	Print
Portrait de Jeanne Chaine	1903	Drawing
Portrait de jeune fille sur fond d'arcatures	1911	Painting
Portrait de Madame Redon	1911	Painting
Portrait de Paule Gobillard	1908	Drawing
Portrait of A.M.L. Bonger-van der Linden	1905	Painting
Portrait of Emile Bernard	1901	Drawing
Profil de jeune fille parmi les fleurs	1905	Painting
Profil de lumiere (Profile of light)	1886	Print
Profile	Date unknown	Painting
Profile and Flowers	1912	Drawing
Profile of a Woman with a Vase of Flowers	1900	Painting
Profile on Red Meanders (formery known as Jeanne d'Arc) (see Google Books)	1900	Drawing
Prophète	Date unknown	Painting
Puis l'ange prit l'encensoir (And the angel took the censer)	1899	Print
Quadrige, le char d’Apollon	1909	Painting
Quand s'eveillait la Vie au Fon de la matiere obscure (When life was awakening in the depths of obscure matter	1883	Print
Reflections	1903	Drawing
rocher en Bretagne	Date unknown	Painting
Rocher sur la grève	Date unknown	Painting
Rochers de Vallières, près de Royan	Date unknown	Painting
Rochers en Bretagne	1884	Painting
Rochers près de Royan	Date unknown	Painting
Rochers sur la plage	Date unknown	Painting
Rocks on the Beach	1883	Painting
Rocky Peak	1875	Painting
Rocky Slope	Date unknown	Painting
Roger and Angelica	1910	Drawing
Roger et Angélique	Date unknown	Painting
Roger Marx	1904	Print
Roland à Ronceveaux	1862	Painting
Rose, iris et marguerites dans un vase vert	Date unknown	Painting
rue à Saint-Georges-de-Didonne	Date unknown	Painting
Rue de village	1875	Painting
Rue Douarnenez	1880	Painting
Sailboats (Allegorical Landscape)	1907	Painting
Saint Anthony and the Two Temptresses (Saint Antoine et deux Tentatrices)	1896	Drawing
Saint-Antoine...A travers ses longs cheveux qui lui couvraient la figure, j'ai cru reconnaitre Ammonaria (Saint Anthony: "Beneathe her long hair , which covered her face, I thought I recognized Ammonaria)	1889	Print
Saint-Antoine: Au Secours Mon Dieu!	Date unknown	Print
Saint George and the Dragon	Date unknown	Drawing
Saint George and the Dragon (Saint Georges et le dragon)	1909	Painting
Saint Jean	1910	Drawing
Saint John	1900	Painting
Saint Sebastian	1900	Painting
Saint Sebastian	1910	Painting
Saint Sebastian (Basel)	1910	Painting
Saint Sébastien	1910	Painting
Salomé	1910	Painting
Sans cesse a mes cotes s'agite le demon (Ceaselessly by my side the demon stirs)	1890	Print
Seated Man	Date unknown	Painting
Self-portrait	1867	Painting
Self-portrait	1880	Painting
Self-portrait	1885	Painting
Si par une nuit lourde et sombre, un bon chretien, par charite, derriere quelque vieux decombre, enterre votre corps voute (If on a close dark night a good Christian, out of charity, behind some old ruin, buries your arched body)	1890	Print
Silence	1911	Painting
Siren	1900	Painting
Small Grey Panel I	1901	Painting
Small Grey Panel II	1901	Painting
Sommeil de Caliban	1895	Painting
Sous-bois au printemps	Date unknown	Painting
Sous l'aile d'ombre	Date unknown	Print
Sous l'aile d'ombre, l'etre noir appliquait une active morsure (Beneath the wing of shadow the black creature was biting energetically)	1891	Print
Spring	1907	Painting
Still Life with Flowers	1905	Painting
Still Life with Fruit	1905	Painting
stillife	Date unknown	Painting
Sur le fond de nos nuits dieu de son doigt savant dessine un cauchemar multiforme et sans treve (On backdrop of our nights God with His knowing finger traces a multiform implacable nightmare)	1890	Print
Symbolic Head	1890	Painting
Tete d'Enfant avec Fleurs (Head of a Child with Flowers)	1897	Print
Tete d'Enfant (Head of a Child)	1899	Print
Tête d'Orphée	Date unknown	Painting
The Angel Raphael Leaving Tobit and His Family	1862	Painting
The Birth of Venus	1906	Painting
The Birth of Venus	1912	Painting
The Book of Light	1893	Drawing
The Buddha	1904	Painting
The Chariot of Apollo	1905–1916	Painting
The Chariot of Apollo series	Date unknown	Painting
The chariot of the Sun	1910	Painting
The Crucifixion	1904	Painting
The Cyclops	c. 1914	Painting
The Death of Orpheus	1904	Painting
The Devil (Le Diable)	1896	Drawing
The Dog	1896	Print
The Fisherwoman	Date unknown	Drawing
The Flowers in a Blue Vase	1913	Drawing
The Golden Cell	1892	Painting
The Gothic Window	1900	Painting
The Green Vase	Date unknown	Painting
The Grey Sail	Date unknown	Painting
The Haunting (Hantise)	1893	Artwork
The Headhunter and His Family	1870	Drawing
The Mount of Calvary	1895	Drawing
The Muse on Pegasus	1908	Painting
The Port of Morgat	1882	Painting
The Potted Geranium	1865	Painting
The Prayer	1893	Painting
The Queen of Sheba (La Reine de Saba)	1896	Drawing
The Red Boat	1910	Painting
The Red Man	1905	Painting
The red poppy	1895	Painting
The Red Tree	1905	Painting
The Sea in Brittany	Date unknown	Painting
The Shadow (L'Ombre)	1896	Drawing
The Tree	1875	Painting
The Two Graces	1900	Painting
The Winged Man	1890	Painting
The Yellow Sail	1905	Painting
Three Fates	1900	Painting
Trees in Bièvres	Date unknown	Painting
Trees in the Blue Sky	1883	Painting
Triumph of Truth	1870	Painting
Tronc d'arbre dans la plaine	Date unknown	Painting
Two Dancers	Date unknown	Painting
Two Young Girls among Flowers	1912	Painting
Un étrange jongleur [Een vreemde evenwichtskunstenaar], uit de reeks Hommage à Goya. 6 lithographies par Odilon Redon	1885	Print
Underwater Vision	1910	Painting
Une femme revêtue du Soleil (A woman clothed with the sun)	1899	Print
Une longue chrysalide couleur de sang (A longchrysalis, the color of blood)	1889	Print
Vase de fleurs	1915	Painting
Vase de fleurs	Date unknown	Painting
Vase of Flowers	1867	Painting
Vase of Flowers	1890	Painting
Vase of Flowers	1901	Painting
Vase of Flowers	1904	Painting
Vase of Flowers	1905	Painting
Vase of Flowers, after Cézanne	1896	Painting
Vase of Flowers (Pink Background)	c. 1906	Painting
Vase with Bindweed and Camomile	1867	Painting
Vase with Wild Flowers	1900	Drawing
Vieil arbre dans une prairie	Date unknown	Painting
Vierge	1916	Painting
Vieux Chevalier (Old Knight)	1896	Print
Village by the Sea in Brittany	1880	Painting
Village dans les Basses-Pyrénées	Date unknown	Painting
Village Square, Brittany	1883	Painting
Village sur la côte de Bretagne	Date unknown	Painting
Vision	1890	Painting
Vision dans les nuages	1900	Painting
Vision- vase of flowers	1900	Painting
Voici La Bonne-Déesse, L'Idéenne des Montagnes	Date unknown	Print
Volupte, Fantome Elastique! (Pleasure, elastic phantom!)	1890	Print
Wildflowers	1905	Drawing
Wildflowers in a Long Neck Vase	Date unknown	Painting
Window	1907	Painting
Winged Horse	1895	Print
With Closed Eyes	Date unknown	Painting
Woman in a gothic arcade- woman with flowers	1905	Painting
Yellow frieze	1901	Painting
Yeux Clos (Closed Eyes)	1890	Print
Young Man (Jeune Homme)	1896	Drawing
Young Woman in Profile	1910	Drawing
Young woman standing	Date unknown	Painting

Frequently Asked Questions

References

1. J. Paul Getty Museum, Odilon Redon: Otherworldly Visions — Gallery Text, accessed 30 August 2026.
2. Getty Conservation Institute, “Noir: Technical Examination and Analysis of 19th-century Black Drawing Materials.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
3. Musée d'Orsay, “Drawings by Odilon Redon (1840–1916).”, accessed 30 August 2026.
4. Museum of Modern Art, “Odilon Redon: Eye-Balloon (Œil-ballon), 1878.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
5. Museum of Modern Art, “Odilon Redon: The Eye like a Strange Balloon Mounts toward Infinity, 1882.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
6. Museum of Modern Art, “Odilon Redon: …And Eyes without Heads Were Floating like Mollusks, 1896.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
7. Metropolitan Museum of Art, French Prints in the Era of Impressionism and Symbolism, accessed 30 August 2026.
8. Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Odilon Redon: Pegasus and Bellerophon.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
9. Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Odilon Redon: Armor.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
10. Art Institute of Chicago, “Odilon Redon: Guardian Spirit of the Waters.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
11. Art Institute of Chicago, “Guardian Spirit of the Waters — API Record.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
12. Museum of Modern Art, Odilon Redon, Gustave Moreau, Rodolphe Bresdin, accessed 30 August 2026.

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