Odilon Redon
The Eye (Vision)
1880
Physical Qualities
Various charcoals with incising, stumping, and traces of pastel on paper, Sheet: 420 × 369 mm. (16 9/16 × 14 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
Nelson and Juanita Greif Gutman Fund
Object Number
1966.29
After returning from the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1872), in which Germany dealt France a humiliating defeat, Odilon Redon exorcised his demons in a series of darkly suggestive drawings. Working primarily in charcoal—he referred to his pictures as noirs, or “blacks”—he wrote, “One must respect black. Nothing prostitutes it.”
This image of a disembodied eye floating balloon-like in a barren landscape reflects Redon’s desire to push reality beyond the visual certainties of his paintings. He loved fantasy and strange, unsuspected juxtapositions, hoping to jolt viewers into new ways of looking at art—and life.
While not related to a specific Poe work, Redon’s haunting image shares the writer’s eerie aesthetic, which saw beauty in the strange and otherworldly. A dark circle surrounding a single eye and eyebrow morphs into thin strands of hair as the eyeball seems to float inexplicably in the air. Or might it represent someone looking out at us through a peephole? This drawing was at first entitled Vision. Is it about the physical act of seeing? Or is it a sudden apparition?
The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 1966; Paul Rosenberg, New York, c. 1963; Ambroise Vollard (1867-1939), Paris, c. 1900.
Paul Rosenberg and Co., New York, '19th and 20th Century French Drawings and Watercolors', Feb. 4-March 2, 1963, no. 26.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 'Rousseau, Redon and Fantasy', May-Sept. 1968, p. 4.
Victor Carlson and Carol Hynning Smith, BMA, "Master Drawings and Watercolors of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries"; circulated by the American Federation of Arts to the Guggenheim Museum, NY, 24 August - 7 October 1979; Des Moines Art Center, 19 November 1979 - 6 January 1980; Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, 8 February - 16 March, 1980; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1 May - 22 June 1980 ; Denver Art Museum, 12 July - 24 August, 1980.
BMA, "Master Drawings and Watercolors of the 19th and 20th Centuries from the Museum Collection," 14 October - 28 November, 1982.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, 'Master Drawings by French Artists in the Museum's Collection', May 14-July 23, 1989.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, 'As Artists See Us: Drawings from the Museum Collection', May 14-Aug. 11, 1991.
Douglas Druick, Art Institute of Chicago, 'Odilon Redon: Prince of Dreams 1840-1916', June 25-Sept. 18, 1994, pp. 133 and 439, no. 61; circulated to Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Oct. 20, 1994-Jan. 15, 1995; Royal Academy of Arts, London, Feb. 22-May 21, 1995.
Régis Michel, Musée du Louvre, Paris, 'La peinture comme crime', Oct. 19-Jan 14, 2002, cat. no. 108, p. 361; ill. p. 155 and cover.
Doreen Bolger, The Baltimore Museum of Art, 'Haunting Visions of Poe; Illustrations by Manet, Matisse & Gauguin,' Sept. 17, 2003-Jan. 11, 2004.
Doreen Bolger, BMA, "Edgar Allan Poe: A Baltimore Icon," 4 October 2009 - 17 January 2010.
Réunion des Musées Nationaux, "Odilon Redon Retrospective," March 22 - June 20, 2011, cat. no. 36, p. 150.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 'Rousseau, Redon and Fantasy', May-Sept. 1968, p. 4.
Victor Carlson and Carol Hynning Smith, BMA, "Master Drawings and Watercolors of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries"; circulated by the American Federation of Arts to the Guggenheim Museum, NY, 24 August - 7 October 1979; Des Moines Art Center, 19 November 1979 - 6 January 1980; Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, 8 February - 16 March, 1980; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1 May - 22 June 1980 ; Denver Art Museum, 12 July - 24 August, 1980.
BMA, "Master Drawings and Watercolors of the 19th and 20th Centuries from the Museum Collection," 14 October - 28 November, 1982.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, 'Master Drawings by French Artists in the Museum's Collection', May 14-July 23, 1989.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, 'As Artists See Us: Drawings from the Museum Collection', May 14-Aug. 11, 1991.
Douglas Druick, Art Institute of Chicago, 'Odilon Redon: Prince of Dreams 1840-1916', June 25-Sept. 18, 1994, pp. 133 and 439, no. 61; circulated to Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Oct. 20, 1994-Jan. 15, 1995; Royal Academy of Arts, London, Feb. 22-May 21, 1995.
Régis Michel, Musée du Louvre, Paris, 'La peinture comme crime', Oct. 19-Jan 14, 2002, cat. no. 108, p. 361; ill. p. 155 and cover.
Doreen Bolger, The Baltimore Museum of Art, 'Haunting Visions of Poe; Illustrations by Manet, Matisse & Gauguin,' Sept. 17, 2003-Jan. 11, 2004.
Doreen Bolger, BMA, "Edgar Allan Poe: A Baltimore Icon," 4 October 2009 - 17 January 2010.
Réunion des Musées Nationaux, "Odilon Redon Retrospective," March 22 - June 20, 2011, cat. no. 36, p. 150.
Paul Carter, 'Second Sight: Looking Back as Colonial Vision', Australian Art Journal, 13 (1996); p. 22, 35; no. 7c.
Foirades/Fizzles: Echo and Allusion in the Art of Jasper Johns, Los Angeles: University of California (Wight Art Gallery), 1987, p. 131, fig. 17.
A. Werner, 'Odilon Redon', Art and Artists, 6:4 (July 1971), p. 15.
Max Kozloff, Jasper Johns, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1968, plate 108.
'Accessions Report', The Baltimore Museum of Art News 28:1-2 (1967), ill. p. 52.
'La Chronique des Arts', Gazette des Beaux Arts 1176 (February 1967), p. 103, no. 366.
Fisher, Jay McKean, et al. The Essence of Line: French drawings from Ingres to Degas. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005, p. 316-19, ill.
'Edgar Allan Poe,' "BMA Today," Fall-Winter 2009, pp. 8-9, ill. p. 9.
Danilo Eccher, 'Collezioni : Allestimento 2009 - 2011,' Venice: Umberto Allemandi and C., 2010, p.170.
"Sommaire", France:PEFC, 2011.
Pierre Georgel (ed), "Victor Hugo La Legende Des Siecles", Paris: Citadelles & Mazenod, 2013
Hugo, Victor, Charles Baudelaire, and Pierre Georgel. La Le´gende Des Sie`cles Les Petites E´pope´es. Paris: Citadelles & Mazenod, 2013, p. 51.
Carlson, Victor, and Carol Hynning Smith. Master Drawings and Watercolors of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: The Baltimore Museum of Art. New York, NY: The American Federation of Arts, 1979, pp. 71, ill.
Inscribed: lower right in chalk: "Odilon Redon"
