Drawings by Odilon Redon

Research Point: Find out about the nineteenth-century French artist Odilon Redon and his work.

He lived from 1840 to 1916. At the end of the 1800's he was working almost exclusively in charcoal and lithography and called his work "Les Noir". After 1900 he turned to pastels.

His "Les Noir" drawings are dark and represent his own inner visions and nightmares. "there were charcoal sketches which delved even deeper into the terrors of fever-ridden dreams." 1 In Redon's own words: "My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined."2

Here is "The Trees" © The Bridgeman Art Library - London, New York, Paris





This drawing is simple in content, but lush in detail. It reveals a dark, brooding quality due to the relatively consistent tone throughout the drawing, blending the trees from the foreground into the background. One tree leans away from the other as if trying to move away. There is an implied threat, anger.








Other images are more spooky and creepy (appropriate for today, Halloween).

Here is The Crying Spider and The Spirit of the Forest (images are both from Wikipedia)



The Crying Spider was apparently influenced by Gustave Moreau's The Cycle of Orphee. 3

Another influence on his work was Edgar Allan Poe.




These pictures did not fit into the drawings or art of the time. They were Redon's own personal nightmares and delusions. They are quite spectacular drawings. There is much darkness surrounding each subject. The spider, though, is even darker, details of the face being lost in the blackness, except for the single tear. I love the delicate little hairs on the spider's legs.

In the Spirit of the Forest, the spirit is lighter than the background and finely detailed, bringing it forward in the picture, as it stands on a slender tree branch with more branches appearing to grow from it's head. The drawing of the skeleton body, with shadows, makes it look so delicate and fragile.

Charcoal appears to be the perfect medium for these dark, macabre, drawings.



1. Huysmans, Joris-Karl (1998). Against Nature. Translated by Margaret Mauldon, Oxford University Press. pp. 52–53. ISBN 0140440860.

2. Goldwater, Robert; Marco Treves, Marco (1945). Artists on Art. Pantheon. pp. 360. ISBN 0394709004.

3. http://www.odilonredon.net/biography.html