Odilon Redon

During the 1870s and 1880s Odilon Redon worked mainly on, and developed a particular reputation for, his so-called ‘noirs’; large charcoal drawings that are ‘dark in both mood and tone’, in rthe words of one scholar. The subjects of these drawings were often fantastical or visionary, with dreamlike imagery to the fore. Redon’s ‘noir’ drawings are heavily worked, with rich black charcoal covering every inch of the paper. As the artist famously wrote, in a letter to André Mellerio in 1898, ‘I am terrified of a sheet of white paper. It disagrees with me and makes me sterile, and takes away my enthusiasm to work...A sheet of paper shocks me so much that I am obliged, as soon as it is on the easel, to scribble on it with charcoal, chalk, or some other material, and this action gives it life.’ It has also been noted, however, that ‘though the noirs may first appear monochromatic, Redon often allowed the tinted papers he used to show through in places, and he sometimes toned the surface with a resinous substance that gave the image a Rembrandtesque patina.’

In another well-known letter, written in 1894 and published in L’Art Moderne the same year, Redon recalled his discovery of charcoal, or fusain, as a drawing medium: ‘Around 1875 my inspiration came only in crayon, in charcoal, that volatile, impalpable powder that flees under the hand. And the medium, because it offered me a better means of expression, remained with me. This lacklustre material, which has no inherent beauty, was a great help in my explorations of chiaroscuro and the invisible...It should be said, however, that charcoal leaves no room for lightness; it is full of gravity and one can only use it successfully in the same spirit. Nothing that does not stimulate the mind can produce worthwhile results in charcoal. It is on the verge of something unpleasant, something ugly.’

Like many of Redon’s ‘noir’ drawings, the subject of the present sheet is highly enigmatic. It has been associated by the Redon scholar Alec Wildenstein with a distinctive group of charcoal drawings of severed heads. As Wildenstein writes, ‘...now heads, of all kinds and types, hideous and never cheerful, ageless and genderless, some with a slightly zoomorphic appearance, with bony or plump faces, looking stupid or taciturn, with a mischievous or pensive expression. Heads sometimes in groups but more often solitary, seen from the front or in profile, floating on the water, flying through the air…balanced on a plinth or resting on a platter…winged, wingless, horned, with serpentine tails, ablaze, illuminated, haloed, yet severed. All of them…Moreover, these are not dead heads, but living heads, living their own lives, horribly independent, more alive than Redon’s physically intact figures may ever have been. Their sheer number is unsettling, as is their proliferation throughout Redon’s work, which they invade and contaminate. They emerge from everywhere, even where one least expects them…This multitude of severed heads is a symbol of anguish and death.’ More specifically, this drawing is part of a subset of around twenty ‘noir’ studies of heads placed on columns, pedestals or dishes.

The present sheet once belonged to the American music executive and collector Seymour Stein (1942-2023).