With works like Profil de Lumiere (1886), symbolist writer and Impressionist artist Odilon Redon (1840-1916) was at the front of the Société des Artistes Indépendents, who were the first to really pose a challenge to the Impressionists as an alternative venue for progressive art.

Impressionism Image Gallery

Charcoal drawing of profile, Profil de Lumiere by Odilon Redon.
Redon's Profil de Lumiere in charcoal (15-1/4 x 11-3/8 inches)
 is housed in Musée du Louvre, Paris. See more pictures of
Impressionist paintings.

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.

For more on Impressionist paintings, artists, and art history, see:


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Debra N. Mancoff, Ph.D., 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 and an adjunct associate professor and adjunct lecturer at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.