Lot Essay
Imagination, fantasy and fable are at the center of Redon's oeuvre, and his capacity to render mythic animals and monsters in a credible, even compelling, manner has long been recognized as a characteristic of his art. Indeed, the artist himself said:
My whole originality consists in having made improbable beings live humanly according to the laws of the probable, by as far as possible putting the logic of the visible at the service of the invisible. (Quoted in R. Goldwater, Symbolism, New York, 1977, p. 118)
Critics agreed with this assessment. Emile Hennequin wrote:
From now on, M. Odilon Redon should be considered one of our masters and--for those who value above all this touch of strangeness without which, according to Francis Bacon, there is no exquisite beauty--as an outstanding master who, Goya excepted, has no ancestors or emulators. He has succeeded in conquering, somewhere on the border between reality and fantasy, a desolate domain which he has peopled with formidable ghosts, monsters, monads, composite beings made of every possible human persity, bestial baseness, and of all kinds of terrors of inert and noxious things... As much as Baudelaire, M. Redon deserves the superb praise of having created "un frisson nouveau."
His work is bizarre; it touches the grandiose, the delicate, the subtle, the perverse, the seraphic... It contains a treasure of dreams and suggestions which should be used cautiously. Add to its idealism an astounding mastery of execution...[and] an impeccable draughtsmanship that forces the eye to accept even the strangest deformations of real beings. (Quoted in J. Rewald, "Odilon Redon", in exh. cat., Odilon Redon, Gustave Moreau, Rodolphe Bresdin, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1962, p. 31)
And Gauguin said:
I do not see how Redon makes monsters. Those are imaginary beings. He is a dreamer, a visionary... Nature has mysterious infinites, a power of imagination; it manifests them by always varying its products. The artist himself is one of nature's means and, to me, Redon is one of those chosen for the continuance of its creations. His dreams become reality through the probability he gives them. All his plants, his embryonic beings, are essentially human, have lived with us: they certainly have their share of suffering... Redon speaks with his crayon; is it matter that he is after with that inner eye? In all his work I see only the language of the heart, very human and not at all monstrous. What does the means of expression matter! Impulsive movement of the heart. (Quoted in ibid., pp. 36-37)
The first image of Pegasus in Redon's oeuvre is an engraving he published as part of Les Origines in 1883. That print, entitled L'aile impuissante n'éleva point la bête en les noirs espaces, is a study in frustration and impotence. Later in his career, however, Redon used Pegasus instead as a symbol of artistic and poetic power. This is the case with the present picture. As Rosaline Bacou has written, "A glorious Pegasus triumphs in the images created after 1900" (R. Bacou, Odilon Redon, Pastels, New York, 1987, p. 106).
My whole originality consists in having made improbable beings live humanly according to the laws of the probable, by as far as possible putting the logic of the visible at the service of the invisible. (Quoted in R. Goldwater, Symbolism, New York, 1977, p. 118)
Critics agreed with this assessment. Emile Hennequin wrote:
From now on, M. Odilon Redon should be considered one of our masters and--for those who value above all this touch of strangeness without which, according to Francis Bacon, there is no exquisite beauty--as an outstanding master who, Goya excepted, has no ancestors or emulators. He has succeeded in conquering, somewhere on the border between reality and fantasy, a desolate domain which he has peopled with formidable ghosts, monsters, monads, composite beings made of every possible human persity, bestial baseness, and of all kinds of terrors of inert and noxious things... As much as Baudelaire, M. Redon deserves the superb praise of having created "un frisson nouveau."
His work is bizarre; it touches the grandiose, the delicate, the subtle, the perverse, the seraphic... It contains a treasure of dreams and suggestions which should be used cautiously. Add to its idealism an astounding mastery of execution...[and] an impeccable draughtsmanship that forces the eye to accept even the strangest deformations of real beings. (Quoted in J. Rewald, "Odilon Redon", in exh. cat., Odilon Redon, Gustave Moreau, Rodolphe Bresdin, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1962, p. 31)
And Gauguin said:
I do not see how Redon makes monsters. Those are imaginary beings. He is a dreamer, a visionary... Nature has mysterious infinites, a power of imagination; it manifests them by always varying its products. The artist himself is one of nature's means and, to me, Redon is one of those chosen for the continuance of its creations. His dreams become reality through the probability he gives them. All his plants, his embryonic beings, are essentially human, have lived with us: they certainly have their share of suffering... Redon speaks with his crayon; is it matter that he is after with that inner eye? In all his work I see only the language of the heart, very human and not at all monstrous. What does the means of expression matter! Impulsive movement of the heart. (Quoted in ibid., pp. 36-37)
The first image of Pegasus in Redon's oeuvre is an engraving he published as part of Les Origines in 1883. That print, entitled L'aile impuissante n'éleva point la bête en les noirs espaces, is a study in frustration and impotence. Later in his career, however, Redon used Pegasus instead as a symbol of artistic and poetic power. This is the case with the present picture. As Rosaline Bacou has written, "A glorious Pegasus triumphs in the images created after 1900" (R. Bacou, Odilon Redon, Pastels, New York, 1987, p. 106).