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Everywhere Eyeballs are Aflame
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This portfolio is one of three made by Odilon Redon inspired by avant-garde writer Gustave Flaubert’s novel <em>The Temptation of Saint Anthony </em>(1874). Captivated by the book’s fantastical account of moralizing tests encountered by a hermit in the desert, Redon executed charcoal drawings and attempted to evoke that medium’s dense blackness in his lithographs. Based on the text’s darkly imaginative tone rather than its actual content, the works in this series present invented monsters and figures in otherworldly settings with jarring tonal variations. Although Redon felt that the prints effectively translated the surreal universe of his source material, they were largely misunderstood in his own time.
| Artist / Maker | Odilon Redon |
|---|---|
| Date | 1888 |
| Culture / Origin | France, 19th century |
| Medium | lithograph |
| Dimensions | Image: 20.4 x 15.8 cm (8 1/16 x 6 1/4 in.); Sheet: 44.1 x 30.7 cm (17 3/8 x 12 1/16 in.) |
| Department | Prints |
| Type |
About the Artist
A leader of the symbolist movement in France, Odilon Redon was born in Bordeaux in 1840 and grew up in the surrounding region. During his early years he studied drawing, architecture, and the violin. A friendship with Armand Clavaud, a local botanist and philosopher, stimulated Redon's passion for romantic art and literature. In 1864, after a brief and discouraging period of instruction with Gérôme in Paris, Redon returned to Bordeaux, where he studied printmaking with Rodolphe Bresdin (1825-1885). Deploring the… Full biography →
Provenance & Source
Image & data: Cleveland Museum of Art, CC0 / Public Domain.
Condition
A detailed condition report and high-resolution photography are available from our specialists in advance of the sale.
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Femme a la torque ornee (Woman with a plumed hat)
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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!)
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La Mort: Mon ironie depasse toutes les autres! (Death: My iron surpasses all others!)