by Tom Gurney
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
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
Odilon Redon: Symbolism, Dreams and Imagination: Introduction
Odilon Redon did not paint dreams as though he were copying scenes remembered from sleep. Nor did he invent by turning away from the world in front of him. His strange flowers, detached eyes, floating heads and hybrid organisms grew from a more demanding exchange between observation and imagination. Nature supplied structures, materials and laws; literature, music, religion and myth opened those structures to suggestion. The result is an art in which a recognisable thing can become the threshold of something inward and unseen.[1][2]
That method helps explain Redon's importance to Symbolism. He offered neither a fixed set of symbols nor illustrations with meanings that can be decoded once and for all. Instead, he made images that remain precise in their forms and indeterminate in their implications. A charcoal eye is still an eye, even when it ascends like a balloon. Ophelia is still Shakespeare's heroine, even when narrative place and time dissolve around her. Redon's imagination is most powerful where certainty gives way without disappearing.
At a Glance
- Artistic contextRedon was a central figure in the culture of late nineteenth-century Symbolism, especially its preference for suggestion over direct statement.[1][3]
- Starting pointhe repeatedly insisted that invention depended on close study of visible, living and inorganic forms.[4]
- Scientific interestsbotany, zoology, microbiology, evolution and unusual forms of life helped furnish a vocabulary for metamorphosis.[2][4]
- Literary sourcesEdgar Allan Poe, Gustave Flaubert, Charles Baudelaire, Shakespeare and classical authors supplied moods, figures and titles rather than scripts for literal illustration.[2][5]
- Recurring subjectseyes, heads, flowers, plants, marine forms, winged beings, Christian figures and characters from classical myth.
- Essential distinctionhis art anticipated concerns important to later modernists and Surrealists, but Redon belonged to an earlier Symbolist generation, not to the Surrealist movement.[1]
Contents
- Introduction
- Symbolism and the Art of Suggestion
- Observation Before Imagination
- Clavaud, Botany and Modern Science
- The Eye: Organ, Creature and Threshold
- Literature as Atmosphere, Not Script
- Music and the Undetermined
- Sacred Subjects, Classical Myth and Suspended Action
- Colour as an Imaginative Medium
- From Symbolism to Modern Art
Symbolism and the Art of Suggestion
Symbolism was less a uniform visual style than a broad literary and artistic culture. Its participants often resisted the idea that art should merely report outward appearances or deliver an obvious moral. A work might evoke a state of mind, imply an unseen presence or make familiar reality seem charged with another order of meaning. Redon found an attentive audience among Symbolist poets and critics because his pictures make that act of suggestion visible. MoMA describes his art as caught between description and dream, the observed and the imagined.[1]
Yet the label should not make Redon seem like a member of a rigid club. His practice developed through drawing, printmaking, painting, reading, music and scientific curiosity, and it crossed the usual boundary between Naturalism and Symbolism.[6] The Musée d'Orsay treats that relationship as complex rather than oppositional: the noirs look fantastical, but their invention remained grounded in nature and in the scientific discoveries of Redon's time.[4] Symbolism names an important context for his preference for inwardness and ambiguity; it does not exhaust his methods.
The difference can be felt in Closed Eyes. The Musée d'Orsay calls the 1890 painting an icon of Symbolism, but its power does not depend on assigning one meaning to the lowered lids. Sleep, death, absence, meditation and apparition remain possible. Thin oil paint and an undefined surrounding field make the bust seem almost immaterial, while references to Renaissance sculpture give the face physical coherence.[7] Suggestion works because Redon holds several readings open at once.
Observation Before Imagination
Redon's most useful statements about invention begin with looking. In an account published by the Musée d'Orsay, he described carefully copying a pebble, a blade of grass, a hand, a profile or another living or inorganic form. Only after that effort did he feel the mental excitement that compelled him to create. Nature, he said, became his source and ferment.[4] The sequence matters: sustained attention precedes imaginative release.
This principle corrects two common misunderstandings. First, the fantastic forms are not arbitrary doodles. A stem bends, an eyelid curves and a skull bears weight according to structures learned from the world. Second, they are not disguised scientific diagrams. Observation gives an invention credibility without fixing it to a specimen. Redon could make an impossible being seem capable of life because its separate parts retain persuasive rhythms and surfaces.
MoMA's account of Eye-Balloon captures this balance. In the 1878 drawing, a giant eye rises over a marsh like an aircraft while carrying a severed head on a plate. The proposition is impossible, but the blurred and erased charcoal gives the sky atmosphere, and the rounded eye behaves like a plausible floating body. Redon described his originality as bringing improbable beings to life by placing the logic of the visible at the service of the invisible.[8] Fantasy is therefore constructed through, not against, visual knowledge.
Clavaud, Botany and Modern Science
The botanist Armand Clavaud was one of the guides Redon later identified as decisive to his development. Their friendship in Bordeaux joined scientific attention to literary curiosity. MoMA's research connects Redon's early work to evolution and to disciplines including microbiology, osteology, anthropology and teratology, while the Musée d'Orsay emphasises contemporary botany and zoology.[2][4] Such interests offered a world already rich in transformation: cells multiply, organisms adapt, plants resemble organs, and microscopic life unsettles ordinary distinctions between animal and vegetable.
Redon's hybrids should not be reduced to any single textbook image. Their significance lies in the traffic between kinds of form. A polyp approaches humanity; an eye sprouts like a flower; a head and fish body become one organism. In the 1896 lithograph And Eyes without Heads Were Floating like Mollusks, a phrase from Flaubert's The Temptation of Saint Anthony becomes a field of detached organs that are at once anatomical, marine and visionary.[9] The print makes classification itself unstable.
The same scientific wonder persists in the late flower pictures. The Met recognises poppies and cornflowers within Vase of Flowers (Pink Background) while also calling Redon's blooms fanciful re-creations. Jewel-like patches of colour emerge from a misty field rather than from a botanically measured setting.[10] The bouquet confirms that close looking and imaginative transformation were not separate phases of his career. They remained partners after charcoal gave way to vivid colour.
The Eye: Organ, Creature and Threshold
No form demonstrates Redon's method more clearly than the eye. It can register the external world, represent inward attention or become an autonomous creature. In the 1878 Eye-Balloon, vision itself seems released from the body. The 1882 lithograph The Eye like a Strange Balloon Mounts toward Infinity is a separate work, adapted to the tonal range and circulation of print and placed in an album dedicated to Poe.[8][11] Keeping the two objects distinct reveals how Redon could revisit an idea without treating one medium as a neutral copy of another.
Other eyes behave differently. Guardian Spirit of the Waters, also dated 1878, gives the hovering head a monumental watchfulness over a marine expanse.[12] Flaubert's floating, mollusc-like eyes multiply vision until seeing no longer belongs to an individual body.[9] Decades later, the immense eye of The Cyclops peers over a ridge at the sleeping Galatea. The Kröller-Müller Museum connects that eye to Redon's recurring interest in an unknown inner world, while the painting's unusually bright colours intensify the unease of watching.[13]
These works do not supply one universal eye symbol. The eye may suggest consciousness, surveillance, ascent, spiritual attention or bodily estrangement according to its setting. What unites the group is a productive contradiction: the organ associated with empirical sight becomes Redon's most flexible instrument for imagining what ordinary sight cannot verify.
Literature as Atmosphere, Not Script
Redon read widely and repeatedly worked in relation to Poe, Flaubert and Baudelaire. He made three lithographic portfolios inspired by Flaubert's The Temptation of Saint Anthony, and his print albums frequently pair images with literary titles or phrases. Yet Getty's current gallery text is explicit that these series are not traditional illustrations. The texts prompted evocative, often inscrutable images rather than a sequential retelling.[3]
Poe offered an especially fertile atmosphere of anxiety, obsession and unstable perception. MoMA notes that The Teeth was prompted by “Berenice”, but Redon did not choose a single narrative climax. Instead, charcoal and black chalk create the oppressive darkness of a library and place the viewer near the story's tormented consciousness.[2] The album To Edgar Poe similarly invokes an author's imaginative territory without claiming to illustrate a specific Poe text plate by plate.
Flaubert's visionary prose encouraged more direct contact between sentence and image, as the long titles of the Saint Anthony portfolios show. Even there, Redon selected and transformed. Dolorous faces, barren spaces, amoebic forms and apparitions recur as his own visual vocabulary.[2] Baudelaire mattered not because every print corresponds to a poem, but because his writing joined sensory intensity, modern disquiet and the power of suggestion. Across these encounters, literature acts as pressure and resonance. It opens a picture rather than closing its meaning.
Shakespeare provides a late colour example. Ophelia among the Flowers refers to Hamlet, but the National Gallery stresses that it is not a literal illustration. Redon removes the riverbank's descriptive setting, brings the pale profile to the picture's edge and surrounds it with brilliant pastel flowers. Ophelia may be sleeping, floating or dead.[14] The work preserves the emotional field of the tragedy while becoming an independent image.
Music and the Undetermined
Music gave Redon another model for meaning without literal description. The Kröller-Müller Museum records that he learned violin and piano when young, formed friendships with writers and composers, performed music and regarded literary, musical and visual expression as inseparable. It also describes the way he returned to figures such as Orpheus, Ophelia, Pegasus, Salome and Brünnhilde, changing their appearance and meaning like variations on a musical theme.[5]
This idea clarifies why recurrence in Redon's art is not mere repetition. An eye in charcoal, an eye in lithography and the Cyclops's eye in oil share a motif but create different emotional intervals. The same is true of Apollo's chariot, which Redon treated more than thirty times across oil, pastel and pencil.[15] A theme can be accelerated, quietened, brightened or suspended as materials and composition change.
Redon compared his drawings to music because both could place a viewer in an ambiguous, undetermined realm.[14] The analogy does not mean that a particular colour translates into a particular note. It describes a structure of attention: rhythm, contrast, recurrence and pause can carry feeling before a fixed explanation arrives. His undefined grounds function almost like silence around a phrase, giving the visible form room to resonate.
Sacred Subjects, Classical Myth and Suspended Action
Christian, biblical and classical subjects gave Redon widely recognisable stories, but he seldom made narrative action the only point. A haloed head, a Buddha beneath a tree, Orpheus with his lyre or Saint Anthony facing apparitions can concentrate attention on contemplation, trial or revelation. MoMA and Getty both emphasise the originality of his responses to religious and mythological sources.[1][3] Familiarity becomes a platform for uncertainty rather than a guarantee of doctrinal clarity.
In Pandora, dated 1910/1912 by the National Gallery of Art, the heroine bows towards the small box she holds. The feared consequence has not yet occurred. Her tall body, pale rose sky and intense patches of colour below keep the picture poised before catastrophe.[16] Myth is present as expectation rather than completed event.
The Chariot of Apollo works through release rather than stillness. The Met's oil painting of 1905–16 omits a ground plane, so the horses and charioteer appear to race across a limitless sky. The museum notes that the driver may be Apollo, god of light and poetry, or Phaethon, whose attempt to control the sun's horses ended in death.[15] Redon leaves that identity open. The unresolved title and boundless space make ascent, triumph and disaster coexist.
The Cyclops is equally suspended. Polyphemus watches Galatea rather than seizing her, and the landscape holds their unequal bodies apart.[13] Redon's myths often slow a story at the point where desire or danger has become perceptible but has not yet hardened into an outcome. That interval gives colour, scale and gaze the work usually assigned to plot.
Colour as an Imaginative Medium
Redon's move towards pastel and oil in the 1890s changed the emotional range of his art without replacing its underlying logic. Getty notes that his radiant flowers retain powdery surfaces and undefined spaces comparable to those from which his charcoal monsters emerge.[3] The shift is best understood as continuity through different materials: darkness and colour offer separate ways to make a form appear, hover and dissolve.
In pastel, marks can remain dry and luminous, edges can vibrate, and a coloured haze can support both figure and abstraction. In oil, Redon could make a sky, flower or body glow while refusing ordinary spatial depth. The pale face and saturated blooms of Ophelia show colour operating as atmosphere rather than decoration.[14] In The Cyclops, vivid hues make the mythical scene more, not less, uncanny.[13] The late flowers turn observed differences among blooms into floating chromatic events.[10]
Colour also loosens the assumption that imaginative art must be dark. Redon's black works can be delicate, comic or melancholy, while his colour paintings can be ominous, withdrawn or unresolved. Neither palette carries a fixed psychology. What persists is his willingness to let material qualities generate meaning: charcoal haze, lithographic black, pastel bloom and oil colour each shape the kind of invisible world a viewer is invited to complete.
From Symbolism to Modern Art
Redon's contemporaries recognised the singularity of his images, and younger artists found in them a route beyond naturalistic description. MoMA presents his work as illuminating the beginnings of modernism and stresses its continuing hold on twentieth-century and later art.[1] His transformation of nature, liberation of colour and refusal of one final meaning helped make him important to artists whose styles otherwise differed sharply.
Surrealist interest should be described with chronological care. Redon was born in 1840 and died in 1916; he was not a member of the later Surrealist movement. It is more accurate to call him a precedent: his autonomous eyes, hybrid organisms, metamorphoses and unstable spaces made visible a territory that later artists could recognise as relevant to unconscious and fantastic imagery. That reception does not turn the noirs into automatic transcriptions of dreams. Redon's own account insists on alert observation, deliberation and material work.[4]
To look closely at Redon, then, is to resist choosing between fact and fantasy. Begin with the identifiable form, notice how charcoal or colour constructs it, and ask where certainty starts to loosen. His Symbolism lives in that transition. The visible does not disappear; it becomes the means by which the invisible can be imagined.
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.
| Name | Date | Medium |
|---|---|---|
| A La Vieillesse (To Old Age) | 1886 | |
| A Madman in a Dismal Landscape | 1885 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| Arabe musicien | 1893 | Painting |
| Arbre dans la lande | Date unknown | Painting |
| Arbre (Tree) | 1892 | |
| Arbres sur un fond jaune | 1901 | Painting |
| Ari | 1898 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| Butterflies | 1910 | Painting |
| C'est le Diable | 1888 | |
| C'est moi, Jean, qui ai vu et qui ai oie ces choses (And I John saw these things and heard them | 1899 | |
| C'etait un voile, un empriente (It was a veil, an imprint) | 1891 | |
| Cain and Abel | 1886 | |
| 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 | |
| Cellule Auriculaire | 1894 | |
| Cellule Auriculaire (Auricular Cell) | 1894 | |
| Centaur visant les Nues (Centaur aiming at the Clouds) | 1895 | |
| Chaumière bretonne | Date unknown | Painting |
| Chemin près de la mer | Date unknown | Painting |
| Cheval aile (Winged Horse) | 1894 | |
| Cheval cabré sur une cime | Date unknown | Painting |
| Christ | 1887 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| Crucifixion | Date unknown | Painting |
| Cul-de-Lampe | 1890 | |
| Dans l'Ombre des Gens Pleurent et Prient Entourés d'Autres Qui Les Exhortent | Date unknown | |
| Dans mon rêve, je vis au ciel un visage de mystère | 1885 | |
| Dante and Beatrice | 1914 | Painting |
| De oude Ridder | 1896 | |
| 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 | |
| Des Peuples Divers Habitent Les Pays De L'Océan | Date unknown | |
| Die Kathedrale - 13080 - Bavarian State Painting Collections | 1914 | Painting |
| Druidesse | 1891 | |
| Druidesse | 1892 | |
| Dunes | Date unknown | Painting |
| Edouard Vuillard | 1900 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| Et Il Distingue Une Plaine Aride et Mamelonneuse | Date unknown | |
| Et il tombe du ciel une grande etoile ardente (And there fell a great star from heaven burning as it were a lamp) | 1899 | |
| 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 | |
| Et la-bas l'idole astrale, l'Apotheose (And beyond, the star idol, the apotheosis) | 1891 | |
| 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 | |
| Et le lia pour mille ans (And bound him a thousand years) | 1899 | |
| 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 | |
| Et Partout ce Sont des Colonnes de Basalte,... La Lumière Tombe des Voutes | Date unknown | |
| ...Et Que Des Vuex Sans Tête Flottaient Comme Des Mollusques | Date unknown | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| Femme de Profil (Profile of a Woman) | 1900 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| Hélène (Ennoia) | Date unknown | |
| Hommage à Goya. 6 lithographies par Odilon Redon | 1885 | |
| Icarus | 1890 | Painting |
| Il Tombe Dans L'Abime, La Tête En Bas | Date unknown | |
| Il y eut aussi des êtres embryonnaires [Er waren ook embryonale wezens], uit de reeks Hommage à Goya. 6 lithographies par Odilon Redon | 1885 | |
| Il y eut des luttes et des vaines victoires (There were struggles and vain victories) | 1883 | |
| Il y eut peut-etre une vision premiere essayee dans la fleur (There was perhaps a first vision attempted in the flower | 1883 | |
| Immédiatement Surgissent Trois Déesses | Date unknown | |
| Initiation to Study—Two Young Ladies | 1905 | Painting |
| J'ai Quelquefois Aperçu Dans Le Ciel Comme Des Formes D'Esprits | Date unknown | |
| 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 | |
| Je Suis Toujours la Grande Isis! Nul N'A Encore Soulevé Mon Fruit Est Le Soleil | Date unknown | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| L'Aile (The Wing) | 1893 | |
| 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 | |
| L'Automne en Médoc | 1897 | Painting |
| L'Enlèvement de Ganymède | Date unknown | Painting |
| L'Intelligence Fut A Moi! Je Devins Le Buddha | Date unknown | |
| 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 | |
| La Mare à Peyrelebade | 1897 | Painting |
| La Mer à Morgat | 1883 | Painting |
| La Mort: C'est Moi Te Rendes Sérieuse; Enlaçons-Nous | Date unknown | |
| 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 | |
| La palme | Date unknown | Painting |
| La Peur (Fear) | 1865 | |
| La route de Bièvres | 1890 | Painting |
| La sirene sortit des flots vetue de dards (The Siren clothed in barbs, emerged from the waves | 1883 | |
| La Sulamite (The Shulamite) | 1897 | |
| La Vieille: Que Crains-tu? Un Large Trou Noir! Il Est Vide Peut-être? | Date unknown | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| Le Bouddha | 1906 | Drawing |
| Le Buddha | 1895 | |
| 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 | |
| Le Gue (The Ford) | 1865 | |
| Le Jour (Day) | 1891 | |
| Le Jour Enfin Parait,... Et Dans Le Disque Même Du Soleil, Rayonne La Face de Jésus-Christ | Date unknown | |
| Le Liseur (The reader) | 1892 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| Lumière | Date unknown | |
| Lumiere (Light) | 1893 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| Meules couvertes de bâches près d'un arbre | Date unknown | Painting |
| Mme Sabouraud (Thérèse Balandier) | 1907 | Drawing |
| Mon Enfant (My Child) | 1892 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| Parsifal | 1892 | |
| Passage d'une Ame (Passage of a Spirit) | 1891 | |
| Paul Gauguin | 1904 | Painting |
| Paul Serusier | 1903 | |
| 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 | |
| Perversité | 1891 | |
| Perversite (Perversity) | 1891 | |
| Petite fille tricotant | Date unknown | Painting |
| Peupliers à Peyrelebade | Date unknown | Painting |
| Peyrelebade | 1888 | Painting |
| Pierre Bonnard | 1900 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| Saint-Antoine: Au Secours Mon Dieu! | Date unknown | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| Sous l'aile d'ombre, l'etre noir appliquait une active morsure (Beneath the wing of shadow the black creature was biting energetically) | 1891 | |
| 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 | |
| Symbolic Head | 1890 | Painting |
| Tete d'Enfant avec Fleurs (Head of a Child with Flowers) | 1897 | |
| Tete d'Enfant (Head of a Child) | 1899 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| Underwater Vision | 1910 | Painting |
| Une femme revêtue du Soleil (A woman clothed with the sun) | 1899 | |
| Une longue chrysalide couleur de sang (A longchrysalis, the color of blood) | 1889 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| Volupte, Fantome Elastique! (Pleasure, elastic phantom!) | 1890 | |
| Wildflowers | 1905 | Drawing |
| Wildflowers in a Long Neck Vase | Date unknown | Painting |
| Window | 1907 | Painting |
| Winged Horse | 1895 | |
| 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 | |
| Young Man (Jeune Homme) | 1896 | Drawing |
| Young Woman in Profile | 1910 | Drawing |
| Young woman standing | Date unknown | Painting |
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Museums consistently present Redon as a major figure in Symbolism, and Symbolist writers and critics were among his earliest receptive audiences.[1][7] The term is most useful when it describes his preference for suggestion, inward states and meanings beyond literal appearance. It should not imply a single formal style or a rigid membership list.
Dreamlike imagery is central to his reception, but there is no basis for treating the pictures as direct records of dreams remembered from sleep. Redon described invention as beginning with close study of natural forms, followed by imaginative transformation.[4] His works are constructed objects shaped by observation, memory, reading and the behaviour of materials.
Poe, Flaubert and Baudelaire were particularly important to the print albums; Shakespeare and authors from classical antiquity supplied recurring figures such as Ophelia and Orpheus.[2][5] Redon usually sought a text's atmosphere or suggestive force rather than illustrating its events literally. His three portfolios responding to The Temptation of Saint Anthony are the clearest sustained example.[3]
Botany, zoology, evolution, microbiology and the study of unusual organisms supplied forms and questions.[2][4] His friendship with the botanist Armand Clavaud reinforced that curiosity. Science did not dictate a code for the works; it helped Redon imagine credible metamorphoses between plant, animal, mineral and human structures.
His suggestive imagery, independent use of colour and fusion of observed and invented forms offered later modernists an alternative to straightforward naturalism. MoMA places him near the beginnings of modernism and notes his continuing impact.[1] Surrealists could recognise him as a precursor, but calling Redon himself a Surrealist would erase both chronology and his Symbolist context.
Discussion
Use this evidence-led guide as a starting point for close looking rather than a final verdict.
Share an observation about Odilon Redon: Symbolism, Dreams and Imagination or a source that adds useful context.
Reader Insights
Which work most clearly complicates the familiar division between Redon's noirs and his later colour?
Where do Bordeaux, literary networks, natural science or older art most productively alter your reading?
Which source or surviving object would you investigate next?
Join the Conversation
Add your reading below, keeping observations specific and evidence clear.
References
- Museum of Modern Art, “Beyond the Visible: The Art of Odilon Redon.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
- Museum of Modern Art, “Beyond the Visible Showcases the Mysterious and Atmospheric Works of Nineteenth Century Artist Odilon Redon” (press release, 2005), accessed 30 August 2026.
- J. Paul Getty Museum, “Odilon Redon: Otherworldly Visions — Gallery Text” (2026), accessed 30 August 2026.
- Musée d'Orsay, “Drawings by Odilon Redon (1840–1916).”, accessed 30 August 2026.
- Kröller-Müller Museum, “Odilon Redon: Literature and Music” (exhibition brochure), accessed 30 August 2026.
- Colta Feller Ives, “French Prints in the Era of Impressionism and Symbolism,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 46, no. 1 (Summer 1988), accessed 30 August 2026.
- Musée d'Orsay, “Les Yeux clos.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
- Museum of Modern Art, “Eye-Balloon (Œil-ballon), 1878.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
- Museum of Modern Art, “And Eyes without Heads Were Floating like Mollusks, from The Temptation of Saint Anthony, 1896.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Vase of Flowers (Pink Background).”, accessed 30 August 2026.
- Museum of Modern Art, “The Eye like a Strange Balloon Mounts toward Infinity, 1882.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
- Art Institute of Chicago, “Guardian Spirit of the Waters.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
- Kröller-Müller Museum, “The Cyclops.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
- National Gallery, London, “Ophelia among the Flowers.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, “The Chariot of Apollo.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
- National Gallery of Art, “Pandora.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
