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Lot Essay
The art critic Emile Hennequin wrote about his friend and contemporary, Odilon Redon: 'He has managed to conquer a lonely region somewhere on the frontier between the real and the imaginary, populating it with frightful ghosts, monsters, monads, composite creatures made of every imaginable human perversity and animal baseness, and of all sorts of terrifying inert and baneful things... His work is bizarre; it attains the grandiose, the delicate, the subtle, the perverse, the seraphic.' (quoted by: A. Werner, p. VII)
Of an artist best known for his dark visions and grotesque creatures, such as those depicted in his lithographic series Dans le rêve (1879), A Edgar Poë (1882), La Tentation de Saint-Antoine (1888), or Songes (1891) and others (as well as in numerous single plates), one would expect an eccentric personality and somewhat odd comportment. Odilon Redon however lead a remarkably uneventful - if mostly impecunious - life and was known for his quiet and courteous manner. 'Of medium height and thin, Redon had an oblong face with a pointed reddish beard. His colour was pale, his expression calm. His speech was slow, yet his words were well chosen. Just as he was a loyal husband and an affectionate father, so he was on the most cordial terms with a few men, chiefly poets, musicians and others not practising his own art.' (Werner, p. VII) Although well aware of the artistic and literary movements and personally acquainted with many of the leading painters, printmakers and poets of his time, Redon was deeply influenced by Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt. It was Rodolphe Bresdin (see lot 32), who had instructed the younger artist in the techniques of etching and lithography and introduced him to the great printmakers of the past, whom he admired throughout his life.
The present image of a bearded man, seated reading at a table by a window in a dark room, is a homage to both Dürer and Rembrandt, and a direct reference to their depictions of Saint Jerome as a reader and scholar (see fig. 1 & 2). The light coming through the crown glass window is particularly reminiscent of Dürer's Saint Jerome in his Study, but also of the window in Rembrandt's Faust (see lot 20). At the same time, Le Liseur could be understood as an allegorical self-portrait: the artist as an armchair adventurer, who travels to the darkest depths of the human experience and imagination, while seated quietly in his studio.
With this print, Marianne and Alan Schwartz once again chose a work which is not at all obvious and yet representative of the artist, and provides links to many other prints in their collection.
Of an artist best known for his dark visions and grotesque creatures, such as those depicted in his lithographic series Dans le rêve (1879), A Edgar Poë (1882), La Tentation de Saint-Antoine (1888), or Songes (1891) and others (as well as in numerous single plates), one would expect an eccentric personality and somewhat odd comportment. Odilon Redon however lead a remarkably uneventful - if mostly impecunious - life and was known for his quiet and courteous manner. 'Of medium height and thin, Redon had an oblong face with a pointed reddish beard. His colour was pale, his expression calm. His speech was slow, yet his words were well chosen. Just as he was a loyal husband and an affectionate father, so he was on the most cordial terms with a few men, chiefly poets, musicians and others not practising his own art.' (Werner, p. VII) Although well aware of the artistic and literary movements and personally acquainted with many of the leading painters, printmakers and poets of his time, Redon was deeply influenced by Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt. It was Rodolphe Bresdin (see lot 32), who had instructed the younger artist in the techniques of etching and lithography and introduced him to the great printmakers of the past, whom he admired throughout his life.
The present image of a bearded man, seated reading at a table by a window in a dark room, is a homage to both Dürer and Rembrandt, and a direct reference to their depictions of Saint Jerome as a reader and scholar (see fig. 1 & 2). The light coming through the crown glass window is particularly reminiscent of Dürer's Saint Jerome in his Study, but also of the window in Rembrandt's Faust (see lot 20). At the same time, Le Liseur could be understood as an allegorical self-portrait: the artist as an armchair adventurer, who travels to the darkest depths of the human experience and imagination, while seated quietly in his studio.
With this print, Marianne and Alan Schwartz once again chose a work which is not at all obvious and yet representative of the artist, and provides links to many other prints in their collection.