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Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Page Created on August 30, 2026 / Page Updated on November 6, 2026
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Odilon Redon Paintings and Pastels: Introduction

Odilon Redon's colour works are often introduced as the bright second act of a career that began in black. The contrast is real, but the simple story is misleading. Pastel offered Redon colour through a dry, powdery medium closely related to the charcoal he already understood. Oil and tempera gave him other kinds of surface, scale and permanence. Across all three, faces, flowers and mythic bodies occupy spaces that rarely behave like ordinary rooms or landscapes. Colour changed what Redon's art could do without replacing the imaginative habits of the noirs.[1][2]

At a Glance

  • Main colour mediapastel, oil paint and, in some works, tempera or mixed media.
  • Useful turning pointcolour became increasingly prominent from around 1890, but the transition was gradual rather than a clean break.[1]
  • Pastel methodRedon layered marks, used parallel lines and hatching, and sometimes combined pastel with charcoal, Conté pencil, pastel pencil or paint.[1]
  • Recurring subjectsinward-looking figures, portraits, flowers, literary heroines and figures from classical myth.
  • Characteristic settinga mist, cloud or coloured field in which objects can seem to float rather than occupy measured depth.[2]
  • Important cautionnot every late work is a pastel, and black did not vanish from Redon's colour art.

Selected Odilon Redon paintings and pastels

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Colour Was a Transition, Not a Conversion
  3. Why Pastel Suited Redon
  4. Oil and Tempera Were Different Tools
  5. Faces, Portraits and Closed Eyes
  6. Flowers Between Observation and Invention
  7. Myth, Literature and Undefined Space
  8. Colour at the Scale of Decoration
  9. A Medium Gallery: Six Colour Works Compared
  10. How to Look at a Redon Colour Work

Colour Was a Transition, Not a Conversion

The year 1890 provides a useful hinge. That is the date of Closed Eyes, an oil painting in which a pale head rises against a softly modulated blue-brown field. Yet no single year divides one Redon from another. The Musée d'Orsay describes his movement from black to colour as gradual and notes that charcoal continued to appear in his pastels. The Getty similarly stresses continuity of vision: radiant flowers and hovering forms still emerge from an undefined realm comparable to that of the charcoal monsters.[1][2][4]

This distinction matters because colour is not evidence that Redon abandoned difficult or ambiguous ideas. The later pictures can appear more lyrical, but sleep, isolation, suspended action and the uneasy meeting of beauty and strangeness remain central. Nor was colour wholly absent from his earlier practice. Coloured paper, touches of pastel and mixed materials could modify the blacks of a drawing before bright colour became a dominant concern. From the 1890s, the balance shifted decisively, and Redon explored the possibilities of pastel and oil with increasing confidence; the imaginative logic, however, remained recognisably his own.[1][3]

The result is better understood as an expansion. Black had taught Redon how to make an apparition emerge from darkness and how to leave parts of an image unresolved. Colour let him produce another kind of emergence: a flower can flare against haze, a head can materialise within an aureole, or a mythic body can be held between landscape and dream. The late work does not explain the early work away. It reveals how durable Redon's methods of suggestion were.

Why Pastel Suited Redon

Pastel is dry colour held in a fragile layer on a support. The Musée d'Orsay emphasises its matte, powdery quality and its ability to absorb rather than reflect light. That physical character connects it to charcoal, another friable material whose particles can be spread, layered and disturbed. For Redon, adopting pastel therefore did not mean exchanging drawing for a completely alien form of painting. It allowed the tactile and atmospheric knowledge developed in the noirs to continue in colour.[1]

Close viewing reveals that his pastel colour is constructed, not simply filled in. The Orsay account identifies parallel lines and hatching as means of creating vibration and intensity. Layers can remain optically distinct: a dark contour, a passage of coloured strokes and a lighter haze may all participate without merging into a polished skin. Redon also worked in mixed media. Charcoal could remain under or within pastel; Conté and pastel pencils could sharpen or extend passages; pastel could enhance a painted surface. These combinations make blanket labels such as “a pastel period” inadequate.[1]

The medium also suits Redon's uncertain spaces. Powder can make an edge glow, dissolve or appear to hover. In Ophelia among the Flowers, rapidly drawn dark outlines and coloured highlights give jewel-like definition to some passages while other forms remain open and atmospheric. The National Gallery describes the image as almost abstract in its design, although its literary subject remains legible. The balance between recognition and dissolution is fundamental: Redon gives the eye enough information to identify a face or bloom, then prevents the surrounding world from settling into ordinary depth.[5]

Oil and Tempera Were Different Tools

Redon's colour art cannot be reduced to pastel. Closed Eyes, Pandora, The Chariot of Apollo, Vase of Flowers (Pink Background) and The Cyclops are all oil paintings, though their supports differ. Oil enabled Redon to build coloured fields on canvas, cardboard or panel-mounted supports and to work at sizes and formats distinct from many drawings. Museum records should govern the medium of each object; a powdery appearance in a reproduction does not make an oil painting a pastel.[4][6][7][8][11]

Tempera adds another complication. The Met records Etruscan Vase with Flowers as tempera on canvas, dating it to 1900–10. Its palms and invented or artificial blooms occupy a blue-and-ochre scheme. The work demonstrates that Redon selected among colour media rather than following one fixed recipe. It would be unsafe to infer a precise pigment mixture or sequence from appearance alone.[9]

Faces, Portraits and Closed Eyes

In colour, Redon's human figures often remain psychologically withheld. Closed eyes turn attention away from exchange with the viewer; lowered heads and profiles can produce a similar effect. Closed Eyes is especially important because its oil medium and 1890 date place it near the transition into sustained colour. The head is monumental but not fully embodied, and the surrounding field gives no dependable location. Colour makes the apparition gentler without making its condition certain.[4]

Portraits could retain more social specificity while still opening into imaginative space. In the 1901 pastel Madame Arthur Fontaine, yellow and lavender and a profusion of flowers spread behind and above the seated woman. The sitter remains recognisable as a person in a portrait, yet the setting does not behave as descriptive domestic space. Redon's colour surrounds identity with atmosphere instead of using background merely as furniture or view.[10]

The closed or averted face also links portraiture to literary imagery. Ophelia's profile in the National Gallery pastel belongs to Shakespeare's tragedy, but Redon did not construct a literal scene from the play. Her drained face is held among vivid flowers, and it remains uncertain whether she is asleep or dead. Such ambiguity is not an absence of meaning. It is the mechanism by which the picture sustains several related states—reverie, suspension and loss—without selecting just one.[5]

Flowers Between Observation and Invention

Redon's flowers can be botanically suggestive without operating as specimens. In Vase of Flowers (Pink Background), the Met identifies poppies and cornflowers among the bouquet, yet describes them as fanciful re-creations set against a misty, undefined field. The contrast is productive: attentive looking supplies structures and differences, while imagination loosens scale, colour and setting.[8]

His friendship with Armand Clavaud, curator of Bordeaux's botanical gardens, belongs to this history of sustained interest in natural forms. The Met connects that relationship to the sense of wonder evident in Redon's bouquets, where recognisable and uncertain plants can coexist. It does not follow that every flower carries a stable coded meaning. A poppy may invite associations with sleep, but the evidence of a particular picture should come before a universal flower dictionary.[10]

Flowers also let Redon organise colour without depending on conventional perspective. Stems and a vase may provide a centre, while blooms become separate pulses distributed across a field. In Flower Clouds, a pastel of about 1903, the very title joins botanical form to atmosphere. In the oil Vase of Flowers, the pink background is neither a clearly measured wall nor empty neutral space. It is an active colour environment from which the bouquet emerges.[8][12]

Myth, Literature and Undefined Space

Redon repeatedly drew on classical myth and literature, but his paintings often suspend narrative rather than recount it. The National Gallery's Ophelia concentrates Shakespeare's heroine, flowers, colour and uncertainty rather than illustrating a sequence of events. In the National Gallery of Art's Pandora, dated 1910/1912, the woman bows toward the box she holds while a coloured landscape and flower-like forms spread around her. The picture concentrates attention on a moment before consequences become visible.[5][6]

The Chariot of Apollo transforms motion in another way. The Met's oil painting of 1905–16 omits a ground plane, so horses and charioteer appear to race through boundless sky. Redon returned to the motif in more than thirty works across oil, pastel and pencil. The absence of stable ground is therefore not a failure to finish the setting; it is part of how the image detaches myth from ordinary time and place.[7]

Undefined space does not always mean calm. In The Cyclops, the giant Polyphemus looks over a rocky barrier toward the sleeping Galatea. The Kröller-Müller Museum identifies the conspicuous single eye and the unusually bright colours as sources of the painting's charged effect. Colour heightens the tension between an alluring surface and an act of watching. The dream world can be radiant and menacing at once.[11]

Colour at the Scale of Decoration

Redon's later work extended beyond autonomous easel pictures. He made decorative panels and screens for patrons and friends, using recurring flowers, trees, profiles and indefinite coloured fields on an architectural scale. A historical MoMA catalogue records commissions for interiors as well as screens, showing that decoration became a serious arena rather than a marginal sideline.[13]

This larger setting altered the viewer's encounter. A panel within a room participates in an ensemble and is seen through movement, distance and changing attention. Redon's floating forms could spread across a wall without requiring continuous narrative. Decoration gave his art a place between image and environment, while preserving the openness that makes an individual pastel or painting resist a single explanation.

Closed Eyes, 1890

This is oil on canvas mounted on cardboard, not pastel. Its restrained range and hovering head make it a threshold work: colour is present, yet the image remains close to the inward, apparition-like language of the noirs. It is held by the Musée d'Orsay.[4]

Ophelia among the Flowers, about 1905–08

This National Gallery work is pastel on paper. Dark outlines and intense coloured passages coexist with an unresolved luminous field. Its horizontal format and literary subject distinguish it from Redon's more compact, freestanding heads.[5]

Pandora, 1910/1912

The National Gallery of Art's tall, narrow Pandora is oil on canvas. The bowed profile, small box and flower-like foreground arrest the myth before its catastrophe. It must not be confused with the Met's different Pandora of about 1914.[6]

The Chariot of Apollo, 1905–16

The Met painting is oil on canvas and one version within a much larger group devoted to the motif. Its racing horses inhabit a groundless sky. Other versions use pastel or pencil, so their media and dates should not be transferred to this object.[7]

Vase of Flowers (Pink Background), about 1906

This Met still life is oil on canvas. Identifiable flowers are transformed into jewel-like colour against a misty pink field. The firmness of the vase and stems makes the surrounding spatial uncertainty especially visible.[8]

The Cyclops, about 1914

The Kröller-Müller painting is oil on cardboard mounted on panel. Polyphemus, Galatea, landscape and the enlarged eye join a mythic subject to Redon's long fascination with vision. Its brightness is not uncomplicated cheerfulness; it intensifies the strange relation between watcher and sleeper.[11]

How to Look at a Redon Colour Work

Begin with the museum label. Knowing whether the object is pastel, oil or tempera prevents surface resemblance from becoming a false technical claim. Then look for the dark structure. A contour around a face, the neck of a vase or a mesh of hatching may organise colours that initially seem to drift freely. In a pastel, move close enough to distinguish separate marks, then step back until they combine into haze or radiance.[1][5]

Next, ask what is stable and what is withheld. A title may identify Ophelia, Pandora or Apollo, but does the picture specify a precise moment, location or outcome? In a flower work, identify only the blooms the source or image supports, and notice where observation gives way to invention. Finally, compare the figure's scale with its setting. Redon's heads, flowers and mythic bodies often seem unusually large because the space around them lacks measurable distance. That imbalance is not a puzzle to solve once. It is a visual condition that keeps the familiar subject poised at the edge of an apparition.[2][8]

Preservation Changes How Pastels Are Seen

Pastel's beauty depends on particles that can remain vulnerable at the surface. The Musée d'Orsay notes that Redon used fixative but stopped doing so after 1912 because it could alter colour and flatten the bloom of the pigments. He paid close attention to framing as a means of protection.[1] Those facts explain why a museum pastel is normally encountered behind glazing and why handling, vibration and contact with the surface matter.

They also caution against treating a digital image as a complete account. Screens illuminate colour from behind; pastel absorbs light and has a material grain. Reflections from glazing may intervene in a gallery, but seeing the work at different distances can reveal relations between separate strokes, dark scaffolding and powdery haze that reproductions compress. Oil and tempera have their own condition histories, so the safest rule is to follow the holding museum's medium and conservation information for the specific object.

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

NameDateMedium
A La Vieillesse (To Old Age)1886Print
A Madman in a Dismal Landscape1885Print
A Woman Reading a Book or Reading1914Painting
Allégorie : un arbre rouge non rougi par le soleil1905Painting
Alsace1914Painting
Andromeda1907Painting
Andromeda1912Painting
Andromeda enchained1905Painting
AnémonesDate unknownPainting
Anemones and Tulips1902Painting
Animals at the Bottom of the SeaDate unknownPainting
Antoine: Quel Est Le But de Tout Cela? ...Date unknownPrint
Apache (Man on Horseback)Date unknownPainting
Apache (Man on Horseback II)Date unknownPainting
Apollo1905Painting
Apollo's chariot1910Painting
Apollon vainqueur du serpent Python1872Painting
Apollonius1896Drawing
Apparition1905Painting
Apparition1907Painting
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)1899Print
Arabe musicien1893Painting
Arbre dans la landeDate unknownPainting
Arbre (Tree)1892Print
Arbres sur un fond jaune1901Painting
Ari1898Print
Armor1891Drawing
At the Bottom of the Sea1905Painting
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 Redon1885Print
Autoportrait en buste1876Painting
Bain de Venus1900Painting
Barbizon en automneDate unknownPainting
Baronne de Domecy1900Painting
Baronne Robert de Domecy1900Painting
Barques1885Painting
Barques dans le port1880Painting
Battle with the dragon1907Painting
Beatrice1885Painting
Béatrice1897Print
Bell-Tower KeeperDate unknownPainting
Black Sun1900Painting
Bloemstilleven1901Painting
BoqueteauDate unknownPainting
Bouddha dans sa jeunesseDate unknownPainting
Bouleaux à BièvresDate unknownPainting
Bouquet au vase noirDate unknownPainting
Bouquet de fleurs1900Painting
Bouquet de fleurs1908Painting
Bouquet de fleurs au mimosaDate unknownPainting
Bouquet in a Chinese Vase1912Painting
Bouquet of Flowers1902Painting
Bouquet of flowers1904Painting
Bouquet of Flowers in a Green Vase1915Painting
Breton Village1890Painting
Brunnhilde1894Print
Butterflies1910Painting
C'est le Diable1888Print
C'est moi, Jean, qui ai vu et qui ai oie ces choses (And I John saw these things and heard them1899Print
C'etait un voile, un empriente (It was a veil, an imprint)1891Print
Cain and Abel1886Print
Caïn et AbelDate unknownPainting
Caliban, petit monstre ou gnome1881Drawing
Calvary1895Painting
CarnationsDate unknownDrawing
Carton de vitrail1911Painting
Cavalier Galopant (Galloping Horseman)1866Print
Cellule Auriculaire1894Print
Cellule Auriculaire (Auricular Cell)1894Print
Centaur visant les Nues (Centaur aiming at the Clouds)1895Print
Chaumière bretonneDate unknownPainting
Chemin près de la merDate unknownPainting
Cheval aile (Winged Horse)1894Print
Cheval cabré sur une cimeDate unknownPainting
Christ1887Print
Christ and the Samaritan Woman (The White Flower Bouquet)1895Painting
Christ on the cross1910Painting
Ciel couvert sur une landeDate unknownPainting
Citroen en paprika1901Painting
Cliff Scene1895Painting
Closed Eyes1890Painting
Closed Eyes (Yeux Clos)1890Print
Colline, près de RoyanDate unknownPainting
Combat équestre1910Painting
Composition à trois personnages (Flagellation ?)Date unknownPainting
Composition: FlowersDate unknownPainting
Composition: Flowers without a VaseDate unknownPainting
Conque marineDate unknownPainting
Conversation mystiqueDate unknownPainting
copie d'après 'La chasse aux lions' de Delacroix1865Painting
Copie d'après 'La Grèce sur les ruines de Missolonghi' de DelacroixDate unknownPainting
Coquelicots1885Painting
Couverture - Frontispice1890Print
CrucifixionDate unknownPainting
Cul-de-Lampe1890Print
Dans l'Ombre des Gens Pleurent et Prient Entourés d'Autres Qui Les ExhortentDate unknownPrint
Dans mon rêve, je vis au ciel un visage de mystère1885Print
Dante and Beatrice1914Painting
De oude Ridder1896Print
De Strijdwagen van ApolloDate unknownPainting
Den helige Antonius, bröstbild1906Drawing
Des Fleurs Tombent, et la Tête d'un Python ParaitDate unknownPrint
Des Peuples Divers Habitent Les Pays De L'OcéanDate unknownPrint
Die Kathedrale - 13080 - Bavarian State Painting Collections1914Painting
Druidesse1891Print
Druidesse1892Print
DunesDate unknownPainting
Edouard Vuillard1900Print
Een man van het volk. Tekening voor een illustratie in Le Juré van Edmond Picard1887Drawing
Eerbetoon aan Goya1895Painting
Elle Tire de Sa Poitrine une Éponge Toute Noire, La Couvre de BaisersDate unknownPrint
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)1896Print
Escape to EgyptDate unknownPainting
Esquisse de vitrail1905Drawing
Et celui qui était monté dessus se nommait la Mort (And his name that sat on him was Death)1899Print
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)1899Print
Et Il Distingue Une Plaine Aride et MamelonneuseDate unknownPrint
Et il tombe du ciel une grande etoile ardente (And there fell a great star from heaven burning as it were a lamp)1899Print
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)1883Print
Et la-bas l'idole astrale, l'Apotheose (And beyond, the star idol, the apotheosis)1891Print
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)1899Print
Et le lia pour mille ans (And bound him a thousand years)1899Print
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)1899Print
Et Partout ce Sont des Colonnes de Basalte,... La Lumière Tombe des VoutesDate unknownPrint
...Et Que Des Vuex Sans Tête Flottaient Comme Des MollusquesDate unknownPrint
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)1899Print
Etruscan Vase with Flowers1905Painting
étude pour 'La chasse aux lions' d’après Delacroix1867Painting
Eve1904Painting
Evocation of Butterflies1910Painting
Evocation of Roussel1912Painting
Eye-Balloon1878Drawing
Falaise dominant la merDate unknownPainting
Fantasia1910Painting
FantasmagorieDate unknownPainting
Femme a la torque ornee (Woman with a plumed hat)1900Print
Femme de Profil (Profile of a Woman)1900Print
Femme en rouge1898Drawing
Ferme et rochersDate unknownPainting
Figure1901Painting
Figure cornueDate unknownDrawing
Figure devant un arbre1894Drawing
Figure portant une tête ailée1876Drawing
Figure, yellow flower1901Painting
Fireplace screen1908Painting
Fishing BoatDate unknownPainting
Fishing Boats: Memory of Venice1908Painting
Fishing Village, Brittany1883Painting
Five Butterflies1912Drawing
FleursDate unknownPainting
Fleurs dans un paysage de montagne avec visageDate unknownPainting
Fleurs dans un vase1907Painting
Fleurs dans un Vase bleu1903Painting
Fleurs dans un vase : pivoinesDate unknownPainting
Fleurs des champs1906Painting
Fleurs étranges1910Painting
Flower Clouds1903Drawing
Flowers in a Japanese Vase1908Painting
Flowers in a Vase1910Painting
Flowers in Green VaseDate unknownPainting
Flowers: Poppies and Daisies1867Painting
Frieze of flowers and berries1901Painting
Frise de fleurs, marguerite rose1901Painting
Frontispiece1889Print
Gekruisigde ChristusDate unknownDrawing
Geraniums and other Flowers in a Stoneware Jug1910Painting
Grand Bouquet1901Painting
Grand bouquet de fleurs des champs1903Painting
Grand panneau à décor végétal, fond clair1901Painting
Grand tapis de prière1908Painting
Green DeathDate unknownPainting
Grey frieze1901Painting
Groupe de maisons blanches aux toits rougesDate unknownPainting
Guardian Spirit of the Waters1878Drawing
Hantise (Obsession)1894Print
Hélène (Ennoia)Date unknownPrint
Hommage à Goya. 6 lithographies par Odilon Redon1885Print
Icarus1890Painting
Il Tombe Dans L'Abime, La Tête En BasDate unknownPrint
Il y eut aussi des êtres embryonnaires [Er waren ook embryonale wezens], uit de reeks Hommage à Goya. 6 lithographies par Odilon Redon1885Print
Il y eut des luttes et des vaines victoires (There were struggles and vain victories)1883Print
Il y eut peut-etre une vision premiere essayee dans la fleur (There was perhaps a first vision attempted in the flower1883Print
Immédiatement Surgissent Trois DéessesDate unknownPrint
Initiation to Study—Two Young Ladies1905Painting
J'ai Quelquefois Aperçu Dans Le Ciel Comme Des Formes D'EspritsDate unknownPrint
Jacob and the Angel1907Painting
Jacob's Struggle with the Angel1910Painting
Jacob Wrestling with the Angel1907Painting
Je Me Suis Enfoncé dans la Solitude. J'habitais L'Arbre Derrière MoiDate unknownPrint
Je Suis Toujours la Grande Isis! Nul N'A Encore Soulevé Mon Fruit Est Le SoleilDate unknownPrint
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)1890Print
Jésus et la SamaritaineDate unknownPainting
L'Aile impuissante n'eleva point la bete en ces noirs espaces (The impotent wing did not lift the animal into that black space1883Print
L'Aile (The Wing)1893Print
L'ange déchu1875Painting
L'ange guerrier1900Painting
L'apparitionDate unknownPainting
L'Araignée souriante1881Drawing
L'ArbreDate unknownPainting
L'Art Celeste (The Celestial Art)1894Print
L'Automne en Médoc1897Painting
L'Enlèvement de GanymèdeDate unknownPainting
L'Intelligence Fut A Moi! Je Devins Le BuddhaDate unknownPrint
La Baie des TrépassésDate unknownPainting
La Barque1900Painting
La Barque rouge1900Painting
La Branche fleurie jaune1901Painting
La captive1914Painting
La Chute de Phaéton1906Painting
La Chute de Phaëton1910Painting
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 Redon1885Print
La Mare à Peyrelebade1897Painting
La Mer à Morgat1883Painting
La Mort: C'est Moi Te Rendes Sérieuse; Enlaçons-NousDate unknownPrint
La Mort d'Orphée1908Painting
La mort. Mon ironie dépasse toutes les autres!1890Painting
La Mort: Mon ironie depasse toutes les autres! (Death: My iron surpasses all others!)1889Print
La palmeDate unknownPainting
La Peur (Fear)1865Print
La route de Bièvres1890Painting
La sirene sortit des flots vetue de dards (The Siren clothed in barbs, emerged from the waves1883Print
La Sulamite (The Shulamite)1897Print
La Vieille: Que Crains-tu? Un Large Trou Noir! Il Est Vide Peut-être?Date unknownPrint
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!)1896Print
Lady of the Flowers1892Painting
Lande avec une mareDate unknownPainting
Lande nueDate unknownPainting
Landscape1872Painting
LandscapeDate unknownPainting
Landscape at Daybreak1872Painting
Landscape with Rocks near RoyanDate unknownPainting
Large Vase with Flowers1912Painting
Le Bouddha1895Print
Le Bouddha1906Drawing
Le Buddha1895Print
Le Centaure à l'arcDate unknownPainting
Le Centaure aux coquelicots1910Painting
Le centaure et le dragonDate unknownPainting
Le char d'Apollon1905Painting
Le Chemin à PeyrelebadeDate unknownPainting
Le ChêneDate unknownPainting
Le Coursier (The Race Horse)1894Print
Le Gue (The Ford)1865Print
Le Jour (Day)1891Print
Le Jour Enfin Parait,... Et Dans Le Disque Même Du Soleil, Rayonne La Face de Jésus-ChristDate unknownPrint
Le Liseur (The reader)1892Print
Le paravent rouge (avec Pégase)Date unknownPainting
Le pavot noirDate unknownPainting
Le Petit Vase vertDate unknownPainting
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 Cyclops1883Print
Le Regard1901Painting
Le Regard1910Painting
Le Rêve – Fleurs et Visage1890Drawing
Le Rocher rose1880Painting
Le Satyre au cynique sourire (The Satyr with the cynical smile)1883Print
Le Silence1895Painting
Le Vitrail1906Painting
Les Anemones (Still Life with Anemones)1905Painting
Les Bêtes De La Mer Rondes Comme Des OutresDate unknownPrint
Les CroisésDate unknownPainting
Les Landes à Peyrelebade1885Painting
Les ParquesDate unknownPainting
Les Quais à Bordeaux1900Painting
Les rochers (Rochers en Bretagne)1875Painting
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!")1889Print
Les trois vases bleus1910Painting
Liserons et coquelicots dans un petit pichet vert1866Painting
Lueur precaire, une tete a l'infini suspendue(Precarious glimmering, a head suspended1891Print
LumièreDate unknownPrint
Lumiere (Light)1893Print
Madame Arthur Fontaine (Marie Escudier, born 1865)1901Painting
Madame Odilon Redon1882Painting
maison avec deux arbresDate unknownPainting
Marguerites1901Painting
Marguerites et baies de Sorbier1901Painting
Maurice Denis1903Print
Médoc, arbres dans la prairieDate unknownPainting
Médoc, l'arbreDate unknownPainting
Médoc, la landeDate unknownPainting
Médoc, le bouquet d'arbresDate unknownPainting
Melancholy1868Drawing
Mes Baisers ont le Gout d'un Fruit Qui Se Fondrait Dans Ton Coeur!...Date unknownPrint
Meules couvertes de bâches près d'un arbreDate unknownPainting
Mme Sabouraud (Thérèse Balandier)1907Drawing
Mon Enfant (My Child)1892Print
Montagnes des PyrénéesDate unknownPainting
Morgat vue des dunes de la PalueDate unknownPainting
moulin en BretagneDate unknownPainting
Mystery1910Painting
Mystical Conversation1896Painting
Nasturtium1905Painting
Nature morte1901Painting
Navet1875Painting
Noce juive au MarocDate unknownPainting
NocturneDate unknownPainting
Nuages clairs sur une landeDate unknownPainting
Oannès1905Painting
Oannès1908Painting
Oannes and the Sphinx1910Painting
Oannès: Moi, La Première Conscience Du Chaos, J'ai Surgi de L'Abime Pour Durcir la Matière, Pour Régler les FormesDate unknownPrint
OffrandeDate unknownPainting
Old Man With Wings and Beard or Winged Old Man with a Long White Beard1870Drawing
Ophelia1901Painting
Ophelia1905Painting
OpheliaDate unknownPainting
Ophelia among the Flowersc. 1905–1908Drawing
Ophelia with a Blue Wimple in the Water1900Painting
Orphée1910Painting
OrphéeDate unknownPainting
Orpheus1903Drawing
Pandora1910/1912Painting
Panneau décoratif1902Painting
Pansies1905Drawing
Papillons1910Painting
Paravent d'Olivier Sainsère1903Painting
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)1890Print
Parsifal1892Print
Passage d'une Ame (Passage of a Spirit)1891Print
Paul Gauguin1904Painting
Paul Serusier1903Print
Paysage de Venise1908Painting
Pégase et l'Hydre1900Painting
Pegasus1914Painting
Pegasus and the Hydra1907Painting
Pegasus, the Horse on the Rock1908Drawing
Pélerin du monde sublunaire (Pilgrim of the sublunary world)1891Print
Perversité1891Print
Perversite (Perversity)1891Print
Petite fille tricotantDate unknownPainting
Peupliers à PeyrelebadeDate unknownPainting
Peyrelebade1888Painting
Pierre Bonnard1900Print
Piety Beside a Red Tree1905Painting
Pivoine, géranium et lilasDate unknownPainting
Plante verte dans une urneDate unknownPainting
Pond in les Landes1880Painting
Port bretonDate unknownPainting
Portrait d'Arï Redon au col marin1897Painting
Portrait d'Arï Redon en profil1892Print
Portrait de Jeanne Chaine1903Drawing
Portrait de jeune fille sur fond d'arcatures1911Painting
Portrait de Madame Redon1911Painting
Portrait de Paule Gobillard1908Drawing
Portrait of A.M.L. Bonger-van der Linden1905Painting
Portrait of Emile Bernard1901Drawing
Profil de jeune fille parmi les fleurs1905Painting
Profil de lumiere (Profile of light)1886Print
ProfileDate unknownPainting
Profile and Flowers1912Drawing
Profile of a Woman with a Vase of Flowers1900Painting
Profile on Red Meanders (formery known as Jeanne d'Arc) (see Google Books)1900Drawing
ProphèteDate unknownPainting
Puis l'ange prit l'encensoir (And the angel took the censer)1899Print
Quadrige, le char d’Apollon1909Painting
Quand s'eveillait la Vie au Fon de la matiere obscure (When life was awakening in the depths of obscure matter1883Print
Reflections1903Drawing
rocher en BretagneDate unknownPainting
Rocher sur la grèveDate unknownPainting
Rochers de Vallières, près de RoyanDate unknownPainting
Rochers en Bretagne1884Painting
Rochers près de RoyanDate unknownPainting
Rochers sur la plageDate unknownPainting
Rocks on the Beach1883Painting
Rocky Peak1875Painting
Rocky SlopeDate unknownPainting
Roger and Angelica1910Drawing
Roger et AngéliqueDate unknownPainting
Roger Marx1904Print
Roland à Ronceveaux1862Painting
Rose, iris et marguerites dans un vase vertDate unknownPainting
rue à Saint-Georges-de-DidonneDate unknownPainting
Rue de village1875Painting
Rue Douarnenez1880Painting
Sailboats (Allegorical Landscape)1907Painting
Saint Anthony and the Two Temptresses (Saint Antoine et deux Tentatrices)1896Drawing
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)1889Print
Saint-Antoine: Au Secours Mon Dieu!Date unknownPrint
Saint George and the DragonDate unknownDrawing
Saint George and the Dragon (Saint Georges et le dragon)1909Painting
Saint Jean1910Drawing
Saint John1900Painting
Saint Sebastian1900Painting
Saint Sebastian1910Painting
Saint Sebastian (Basel)1910Painting
Saint Sébastien1910Painting
Salomé1910Painting
Sans cesse a mes cotes s'agite le demon (Ceaselessly by my side the demon stirs)1890Print
Seated ManDate unknownPainting
Self-portrait1867Painting
Self-portrait1880Painting
Self-portrait1885Painting
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)1890Print
Silence1911Painting
Siren1900Painting
Small Grey Panel I1901Painting
Small Grey Panel II1901Painting
Sommeil de Caliban1895Painting
Sous-bois au printempsDate unknownPainting
Sous l'aile d'ombreDate unknownPrint
Sous l'aile d'ombre, l'etre noir appliquait une active morsure (Beneath the wing of shadow the black creature was biting energetically)1891Print
Spring1907Painting
Still Life with Flowers1905Painting
Still Life with Fruit1905Painting
stillifeDate unknownPainting
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)1890Print
Symbolic Head1890Painting
Tete d'Enfant avec Fleurs (Head of a Child with Flowers)1897Print
Tete d'Enfant (Head of a Child)1899Print
Tête d'OrphéeDate unknownPainting
The Angel Raphael Leaving Tobit and His Family1862Painting
The Birth of Venus1906Painting
The Birth of Venus1912Painting
The Book of Light1893Drawing
The Buddha1904Painting
The Chariot of Apollo1905–1916Painting
The Chariot of Apollo seriesDate unknownPainting
The chariot of the Sun1910Painting
The Crucifixion1904Painting
The Cyclopsc. 1914Painting
The Death of Orpheus1904Painting
The Devil (Le Diable)1896Drawing
The Dog1896Print
The FisherwomanDate unknownDrawing
The Flowers in a Blue Vase1913Drawing
The Golden Cell1892Painting
The Gothic Window1900Painting
The Green VaseDate unknownPainting
The Grey SailDate unknownPainting
The Haunting (Hantise)1893Artwork
The Headhunter and His Family1870Drawing
The Mount of Calvary1895Drawing
The Muse on Pegasus1908Painting
The Port of Morgat1882Painting
The Potted Geranium1865Painting
The Prayer1893Painting
The Queen of Sheba (La Reine de Saba)1896Drawing
The Red Boat1910Painting
The Red Man1905Painting
The red poppy1895Painting
The Red Tree1905Painting
The Sea in BrittanyDate unknownPainting
The Shadow (L'Ombre)1896Drawing
The Tree1875Painting
The Two Graces1900Painting
The Winged Man1890Painting
The Yellow Sail1905Painting
Three Fates1900Painting
Trees in BièvresDate unknownPainting
Trees in the Blue Sky1883Painting
Triumph of Truth1870Painting
Tronc d'arbre dans la plaineDate unknownPainting
Two DancersDate unknownPainting
Two Young Girls among Flowers1912Painting
Un étrange jongleur [Een vreemde evenwichtskunstenaar], uit de reeks Hommage à Goya. 6 lithographies par Odilon Redon1885Print
Underwater Vision1910Painting
Une femme revêtue du Soleil (A woman clothed with the sun)1899Print
Une longue chrysalide couleur de sang (A longchrysalis, the color of blood)1889Print
Vase de fleurs1915Painting
Vase de fleursDate unknownPainting
Vase of Flowers1867Painting
Vase of Flowers1890Painting
Vase of Flowers1901Painting
Vase of Flowers1904Painting
Vase of Flowers1905Painting
Vase of Flowers, after Cézanne1896Painting
Vase of Flowers (Pink Background)c. 1906Painting
Vase with Bindweed and Camomile1867Painting
Vase with Wild Flowers1900Drawing
Vieil arbre dans une prairieDate unknownPainting
Vierge1916Painting
Vieux Chevalier (Old Knight)1896Print
Village by the Sea in Brittany1880Painting
Village dans les Basses-PyrénéesDate unknownPainting
Village Square, Brittany1883Painting
Village sur la côte de BretagneDate unknownPainting
Vision1890Painting
Vision dans les nuages1900Painting
Vision- vase of flowers1900Painting
Voici La Bonne-Déesse, L'Idéenne des MontagnesDate unknownPrint
Volupte, Fantome Elastique! (Pleasure, elastic phantom!)1890Print
Wildflowers1905Drawing
Wildflowers in a Long Neck VaseDate unknownPainting
Window1907Painting
Winged Horse1895Print
With Closed EyesDate unknownPainting
Woman in a gothic arcade- woman with flowers1905Painting
Yellow frieze1901Painting
Yeux Clos (Closed Eyes)1890Print
Young Man (Jeune Homme)1896Drawing
Young Woman in Profile1910Drawing
Young woman standingDate unknownPainting

Frequently Asked Questions

When did Odilon Redon begin using colour?

Colour became increasingly important around 1890 and especially during the later 1890s, but there was no overnight conversion. Closed Eyes is an oil painting dated 1890, while charcoal continued to appear in later pastels. The most accurate account is a gradual rebalancing: pastel, oil and other colour media expanded Redon's practice while methods of emergence, ambiguity and undefined space continued from the noirs.[1][2][4]

Did Redon prefer pastel or oil paint?

Neither medium can represent the whole colour practice. Pastel gave Redon a matte, powdery surface related to charcoal and supported layering, hatching and luminous broken colour. Oil served major figures, myths, flowers and repeated motifs on canvas and other supports. Tempera appears too, as in Etruscan Vase with Flowers. The subject and the specific object record are more useful than assuming one universal preference.[1][9]

How did Redon make his pastel effects?

Museum research identifies layering, parallel lines and hatching, along with combinations of pastel, charcoal, Conté pencil, pastel pencil and, at times, paint. Fixative could secure the vulnerable surface but might change colour and suppress its powdery bloom; after 1912 Redon stopped using it. These documented practices explain vibration and atmosphere without requiring speculative pigment recipes.[1]

What do the flowers in Redon's paintings mean?

There is no single reliable code for every bloom. Redon studied nature and knew the botanist Armand Clavaud; museum records identify flowers such as poppies and cornflowers in particular bouquets. Yet he freely transformed observed plants into imagined arrangements and undefined colour fields. Symbolic associations may enrich a reading, but they should be presented as interpretation unless a source establishes that Redon intended a specific meaning.[8][10]

Where can I see major colour works by Redon?

Current collection pages place Closed Eyes at the Musée d'Orsay, Ophelia among the Flowers at the National Gallery in London, Pandora at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, The Chariot of Apollo and Vase of Flowers (Pink Background) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Cyclops at the Kröller-Müller Museum. Display status can change, so check each museum's page before travelling.[4][5][6][7][8][11]

Discussion

Use this evidence-led guide as a starting point for close looking rather than a final verdict.

Share an observation about Odilon Redon Paintings and Pastels or a source that adds useful context.

Reader Insights

Close Looking

Which material decision best defines Redon's practice in this group of works?

Context

Where do you see observation and invention working together rather than as opposites?

Open Question

Which work would you add to the selected group, and what would it change?

Join the Conversation

Add your reading below, keeping observations specific and evidence clear.

References

  1. Musée d'Orsay, “Redon 1840–1916.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
  2. J. Paul Getty Museum, Odilon Redon: Otherworldly Visions — Gallery Text, accessed 30 August 2026.
  3. J. Paul Getty Museum, “Odilon Redon: Otherworldly Visions.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
  4. Musée d'Orsay, “Les Yeux clos.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
  5. National Gallery, London, “Odilon Redon: Ophelia among the Flowers.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
  6. National Gallery of Art, Washington, “Pandora.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
  7. Metropolitan Museum of Art, “The Chariot of Apollo.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
  8. Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Vase of Flowers (Pink Background).”, accessed 30 August 2026.
  9. Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Etruscan Vase with Flowers.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
  10. Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Fantastic Blooms: Odilon Redon in The Met Collection.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
  11. Kröller-Müller Museum, “The Cyclops.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
  12. Art Institute of Chicago, “Flower Clouds.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
  13. Museum of Modern Art, Odilon Redon, Gustave Moreau, Rodolphe Bresdin, accessed 30 August 2026.