Flower Cloudsc. 1903
Two figures drift in a small sailboat beneath clouds that bloom into brilliant, flower-like colour, a scene that seems to belong to dream rather than to any real voyage. More about this work
About this work
Two figures drift in a small sailboat beneath clouds that bloom into brilliant, flower-like colour, a scene that seems to belong to dream rather than to any real voyage. Odilon Redon spent the first decades of his career working almost entirely in black, in the charcoal drawings and lithographs he called his ‘noirs’, before turning in the 1890s to pastel and radiant colour. The boat, a recurring motif in his late work, suggests a spiritual journey, and the pastel, worked with stumping and incising, glows against the blue-grey paper.
Written by Ochre Editions.
What you’re looking at
Pastel drawing of two figures in a sailboat, bright multi-colored clouds.
Description from the Art Institute of Chicago.
How it was made
- Pastel
- Sticks of almost pure pigment with very little binder. The colour sits on the paper as powder: bright, matte and fragile.
Odilon Redon
French, 1840–1916 · Born in Bordeaux; died in Paris.
Redon spent three decades working almost entirely in black: charcoal drawings he called his “noirs” and albums of lithographs peopled with floating eyes, strange plants and dreamlike heads, which made him a hero of the Symbolist writers. In the 1890s he turned to colour, and his later pastels and oils of flowers, myths and visions glow with intense hues. He was close to Mallarmé and admired by the young Nabis.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Post-Impressionism
Artists who kept Impressionism's colour but pushed towards structure, symbol and feeling.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Art Institute of Chicago has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1990.165
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Type
- Drawing and Watercolor
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
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More by Odilon Redon
All their works
Close in colour
