Profil de Lumiere by Odilon Redon

Impressionism Image Gallery

Odilon Redon nevertheless joined the Impressionists for the last exhibition. He exhibited 14 works including Profil de Lumiere, most in charcoal on paper. Like Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, he embodied the spirit of a new generation of independent innovation. His Impressionist work was evocative, fantastic, and mysterious rather than rigorous and scientific, and he drew upon freedom of imagination rather than disciplined theoretical investigations. Critics found his departure of vision startling, prompting comparisons to the poetry of Charles Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Debra N. Mancoff is an art historian and lecturer and the author of numerous books on nineteenth-century European and American paintings. She is a scholar in residence at the Newberry Library.