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Oct 15, 2013

Aug 1, 2012

Orpheus

c. 1903–10

Odilon Redon

(French, 1840–1916)

France, late 19th-early 20th Century

Pastel on brown paper

Sheet: 68.8 x 56.8 cm (27 1/16 x 22 3/8 in.)

Gift from J. H. Wade 1926.25

Catalogue raisonné: Wildenstein 885

Location

not on view

Did you know?

Another version of this pastel (now in the collection of the Musée Fabre de Montpellier) was part of a group of later works by Redon shown at the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art—better known as the Armory Show—which introduced the artist to American audiences.

Description

Drawn in vivid layers of pastel crayon, this work depicts the head of the poet and musician Orpheus. The story of the god of music, whose music carried on after his death through his lyre and head, fascinated Redon, who related to Orpheus's dedication to his art. The subject also aligned with Redon's broader interest in dreams and spirituality around this time and he represented Orpheus several times throughout his career, in various media. Here, the god's head floats as if in stasis while Mount Parnassus—the home of Apollo and the Muses—soars from behind.

Artist biography

Odilon Redon

A leader of the symbolist movement in France, Odilon Redon was born in Bordeaux in 1840 and grew up in the surrounding region. During his early years he studied drawing, architecture, and the violin. A friendship with Armand Clavaud, a local botanist and philosopher, stimulated Redon's passion for romantic art and literature. In 1864, after a brief and discouraging period of instruction with Gérôme in Paris, Redon returned to Bordeaux, where he studied printmaking with Rodolphe Bresdin (1825-1885). Deploring the emphasis on rational, phenomenal experience in academic and naturalist art, Redon turned for inspiration to the imaginative paintings of Delacroix, the prints of Francisco José de Goya (1746-1828), and the poetry of Charles Baudelaire. In 1870, after military service in the Franco-Prussian War, Redon settled in Paris and produced his first Noirs. These visionary images, featuring floating eyes and severed heads born aloft on wings, reflect Redon's belief in the superiority of the imagination and fantasy, which he considered "the messenger of the unconscious." After producing his initial Noirs in charcoal, Redon discovered a method of transferring his drawings to lithography in 1876. Throughout the 1880s he continued to use charcoal, etching, and lithography as his primary media, and he produced twelve lithography albums before abandoning the genre in the late 1890s. During the 1880s Redon emerged as a leader of the symbolist reaction against impressionism. The publication in 1879 of his first lithographic album, Dans le rêve, followed by his first solo exhibition in 1881, attracted the admiration of J. K. Huysmans, who included illustrations by Redon in his novel À rebours (1884). Around the same time, Redon developed a personal and artistic relationship with poet Stéphane Mallarmé. Increasingly drawn into the public arena, Redon helped organize the Société des Artistes Indépendants in 1884. In 1886 he participated in the last impressionist exhibition and began showing with Les XX in Brussels. Redon's antinaturalist, visionary, art inspired many symbolist and Nabi artists, including Gauguin and Vuillard. Maurice Denis praised Redon as "our Mallarmé," and in 1892 critic Albert Aurier described Redon as a leader of the new "idealistic" tendency in art. After 1890 the focus of Redon's activity shifted from monochromatic drawings and prints toward exploring color in richly worked pastels. His innovations in luminous color, as seen in the pastel and oil paintings he exhibited at the Galeries Durand-Ruel in 1900 were greatly admired by Henri Matisse (1869-1954) and the Fauves. Awarded the Legion of Honor in 1903, Redon continued his leadership role in the avant-garde and in 1904 became a founding member of the Salon d'Automne. In 1913 forty of his works were selected for exhibition in the Armory Show, the most by any artist. Redon died at his home in Paris in the summer of 1916.

Inscriptions

Inscription

inscribed, lower left, in black pastel: ODILON REDON

Provenance

after 1903-1910

purchased by Henri Matisse [1869–1954] for his father, Émile Hippolyte Matisse [1840–1910] ¹

? - by 1915

Wilhelm Uhde [1874-1947], Paris

1915 - 1917

(Carroll Galleries, New York, sold to John Quinn, New York)

1917-1924

John Quinn [1870-1924], New York, purchased from his estate by the Cleveland Museum of Art through Joseph Brummer

1926-

Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Provenance Footnotes

¹According to Walter Pach, "...among the pictures which Matisse bought for his father were some by Redon, to whose color he gave the most eager study. He would have liked to retain the works himself when settling the estate. But it was too hard to distribute among the family, and so he sent the Redons to America for sale. One of them is the magnificent Head of Orpheus now in the Cleveland Museum, which acquired it from the heirs of John Quinn, that great collector having bought the work and others from the Matisse family." See Queer Thing, Painting: Forty Years in the World of Art (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1938), p. 166.

Citations

Catalogue of International Exhibition of Modern Art: Association of American Painters and Sculptors : at the Armory of the Sixty-Ninth Infantry, Lexington Avenue, Twenty-Fifth and Twenty-Sixth Streets, New York, from February Fifteenth to March Fifteenth, Nineteen Hundred and Thirteen from Ten a.M. to Ten P.M. (Sundays Included). New York: Vreeland Advertising Press, 1913. Mentioned: p. 32, no. 307

Loan Exhibition of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1921. Mentioned and reproduced: no. 96

Watson, Margaret W. "Odilon Redon, A Great French Lyricist." The Arts 2, no. 5 (1922): 273-276. Reproduced: p. 275

Pach, Walter. The Masters of Modern Art. New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1924. Mentioned and reproduced: no. 14

John Quinn, 1870-1925: Collection of Paintings, Water Colors, Drawings & Sculpture. Huntington, NY: Pidgeon Hill, 1926. Mentioned: p. 14; Reproduced: p. 107

Milliken, W. M. "Orpheus, by Odilon Redon." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 13, no. 6 (June 1926): 139-141. Mentioned: pp. 139-141.

"Cleveland Museum Buys a Redon." The Art News (January 1, 1927): 1-2. Mentioned: p. 2

"Cleveland's New Redon." Art Digest 1, no. 5 (January 1, 1927): 12. Mentioned: p. 12

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1928. Reproduced: p. 39 archive.org

Wilenski, R.H. French Painting. Boston: Hale, Cushman & Flint, 1931. Mentioned: p. 332; Reproduced: pl. 141

Pach, Walter. Queer Thing, Painting: Forty Years in the World of Art. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1938. Mentioned: p. 166

Holme, Bryan. Master Drawings. New York: The Studio, 1943. Reproduced: pl. 114

Francis, Henry Sayles and Ary Leblond. Odilon Redon, 1840-1916: Pastels and Drawings. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1951. Mentioned and reproduced: no. 17

Sandström, Sven. Le monde imaginaire d'Odilon Redon. Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1955. Mentioned: p. 177; Reproduced: p. 175

Rewald, John. "Quelques notes et documents sur Odilon Redon." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 48 (November 1956): 81-124. Reproduced: p. 114

Berger, Klaus. "The Pastels of Odilon Redon." College Art Journal 16, no. 1 (Autumn 1956): 23-33. Mentioned: p. 32; Reproduced: p. 33

The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 512 archive.org

Berger, Klaus. Odilon Redon: Fantasy and Colour. Trans. Michael Bullock. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965. Mentioned: p. 208, no. 365; Reproduced p. 35

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 181 archive.org

Henning, Edward B. Fifty Years of Modern Art, 1916-1966. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Mentioned: p. 7, 206; Reproduced: p. 7

Hamilton, George Heard. Painting and Sculpture in Europe, 1880 to 1940. London: Penguin Books, 1967. Mentioned: p. 47; Reproduced: pl. 23B

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 181 archive.org

Muehsam, Gerd. French Painters and Paintings from the Fourteenth Century to Post-Impressionism. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1970. Mentioned: pp. 490-491; Reproduced: p. 490

Berman, Greta. "The Paradox of Odilon Redon." Konsthistorisk Tidskrift. 39, no. 1-2 (May 1970): 70-79. Reproduced: p. 78.

Selz, Jean. Odilon Redon. Lugano: Uffici Press, 1971. Mentioned: p. 68; Reproduced: p. 54

Cassou, Jean. Odilon Redon. Milan: Fratelli Fabbri, 1972. Reproduced: p. 47

Lucie-Smith, Edward. Symbolist Art. London: Thames and Hudson, 1972. Mentioned: p. 78; Reproduced: p. 70

Hobbs, Richard. Odilon Redon. London: Studio Vista, 1977. Reproduced: p. 150

Christian, John. Symbolists and Decadents. London: Thames and Hudson, 1977. Mentioned: p. 14, no. 4; Reproduced: p. 15

Keay, Carolyn, ed. Odilon Redon. London: Academy Editions, 1977. Reproduced: p. 19

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 224 archive.org

Wilson, Michael. Nature and Imagination: The Work of Odilon Redon. Oxford: Phaidon, 1978. Mentioned: pp. 56, 58; Reproduced: p. 57

Zilczer, Judith. "The Noble Buyer": John Quinn, Patron of the Avant-Garde. Washington, DC: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 1978. Mentioned: p. 180

Canaday, John. Mainstreams of Modern Art. 2nd ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981. Mentioned: p. 370; Reproduced: p. 373

Coustet, Robert. L'Univers d'Odilon Redon. Paris: Carnets de Dessins, 1984. Reproduced: p. 23

Nobuo Abe. Rudon = Redon. Tōkyō: Shūeisha, 1986. Reproduced: no. 34

Bacou, Roseline. Odilon Redon: Pastels. Trans. Beatrice Rehl. New York: George Braziller, 1987. Mentioned: pp. 18, 122, no. 41; Reproduced: p. 123

Cleveland Museum of Art. Images of the Mind. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1987. Reproduced: front cover

Zelanski, Paul and Mary Pat Fisher. The Art of Seeing. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1988. Mentioned: p. 90; Reproduced: p. 91

"'La Rêverie esthétique': Symbolist Works on Paper." Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin 43, no. 1 (Summer 1988): 3-47. Mentioned: p. 34, no. 40; Reproduced: p. 45

Kosinski, Dorothy M. Orpheus in Nineteenth-Century Symbolism. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1989. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 199

Mindell, Arnold. Coma: Key to Awakening. Boston: Shambhala, 1989. Reproduced on cover

Robinson, William H. "Puvis De Chavannes's "Summer" and the Symbolist Avant-Garde." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 78, no. 1 (1991): 2-27. Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 14 www.jstor.org

Strickland, Carol and John Boswell. The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern. Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel, 1992. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 125

Wildenstein, Alec. Odilon Redon, catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint et dessiné. Paris: Wildenstein Institute, 1992. Mentioned: vol. II, pp. 69-70, no. 885; Reproduced: p. 70

Kapos, Martha, ed. The Post-Impressionists: A Retrospective. New York: Hugh Lauter Levin, 1993. Reproduced: p. 165

"Abschied vom Traum einer Heilen Welt." Art, no. 7 (July 1994): 14-17. Mentioned: p. 16; Reproduced: p. 17

Druick, Douglas W., et al. Odilon Redon: Prince of Dreams, 1840-1916.Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1994. Mentioned: p. 230; Reproduced: p. 233

Jarrassé, Dominique. Odilon Redon, le rêve. Paris: Herscher, 1996. Mentioned: p. 46; Reproduced: p. 47

Orizet, Jean, ed. Anthologie de la poésie française: les poètes et les oeuvres, les mouvements et les écoles. Paris: Larousse, 1998. Reproduced on cover

Dempsey, Amy. Styles, Schools and Movements: An Encyclopaedic Guide to Modern Art. London: Thames & Hudson, 2002. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 43

Bamford, Christopher. An Endless Trace: The Passionate Pursuit of Wisdom in the West. New Paltz, NY: Codhill Press, 2003. Reproduced on cover

Janson, H.W. and Anthony Janson. History of Art: The Western Tradition. Rev 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 778

Stefano, Eva di. "Il colore fiorisce." Art e Dossier (2005): 33-46. Reproduced: p. 37

Sturgis, Alexander, Rupert Christiansen, Lois Oliver, and Michael Wilson. Rebels and Martyrs: The Image of the Artist in the Nineteenth Century. London: National Gallery, 2006. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 25

Robinson, William. "World Tour Comes to Cleveland." Cleveland Art : Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine (October 2007): 3-5. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 5

Robinson, William, "World Tour Comes to Cleveland", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 47 no. 08, October 2007 Mentioned & reproduced: p. 5 archive.org

Prettejohn, Elizabeth, Peter Trippi, Robert Upstone, and Patty Wageman. J.W. Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite. Groningen: Groninger Museum, 2008. Mentioned: p. 59; Reproduced: p. 61

Yamamoto, Atsuko, and Akiya Takahashi. Motto shiritai rudon: shōgai to sakuhin. Tōkyō: Tōkyōbijutsu, 2011. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 64

Chevrier, Jean-François. L'Hallucination artistique de William Blake à Sigmar Polke. Paris: L'Arachneen, 2012. Reproduced.

Lemonedes, Heather. "Themes and Variations: Works on Paper from the Museum's Collection with a Musical Motif." Cleveland Art : Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine (January/February 2015): 4-5. Reproduced: p. 4 clevelandart.org

Illiano, Roberto, ed. Music and Figurative Arts in the Twentieth Century. Turnhout: Brepols, 2016. Reproduced: Appendix, no.4

Homburg, Cornelia, "Redon's Femmes aux Fleurs: Variations on a Theme." In Odilon Redon: Literature and Music, edited by Cornelia Homburg,175-95. Exh. Cat. Otterlo: Kröller-Müller Museum, 2018. Mentioned: 184, 207, no. 183; Reproduced: p. 184

Henning, Edward B. The Spirit of Surrealism. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1979. Mentioned: p. 44-45, 185; Reproduced: p.44, fig. 4; colorplate II

Salsbury, Britany. “Collecting Dreams: An exhibition of the museum's outstanding collection of works by Odilon Redon." Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 61, no. 3 (Summer 2021): 12-15. Reproduced: P. 12; Mentioned: P. 14-15.

Exhibition history

International Exhibition of Modern Art. Armory of the Sixty-Ninth Infantry, New York (February 17 - March 15, 1913); Art Institute of Chicago (March 24 - April 16, 1913); Copley Society, Boston (April 23 - May 14, 1913).

Loan Exhibition of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (May 3 - September 15, 1921).

Odilon Redon. Museum of French Art, New York (April 3 - May 1, 1922).

Fifty Years of French Art. Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (October 29 - November 28, 1926).

"The Noble Buyer": John Quinn, Patron of the Avant-Garde. Washington, DC: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (1978).

French Art Since Eighteen Hundred. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 8-December 8, 1929).

The Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition: The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 26-October 4, 1936).

Expressionism and Related Movements. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 26-February 28, 1939).

The Silver Jubilee Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 23-September 28, 1941).

French Drawings and Watercolors from French Public and Private Collections. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (January 6-February 15, 1942).

19th and 20th Century French Art and Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Loans. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 22-September 1, 1943).

Odilon Redon (1840-1916): Pastels and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 29, 1951-January 20, 1952); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN (February 1-March 1, 1952).

Fifty Years of Modern Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 15-July 31, 1966).

Odilon Redon: Dream Creatures and Anemones. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 21-October 14, 1984).

Images of the Mind. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 7-August 30, 1987).

La Reverie Esthetique: Symbolist Works on Paper. Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (organizer) (March 29-May 22, 1988).

Object Lessons: Cleveland Creates an Art Museum. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 7-September 8, 1991).

Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000).

Masterworks from The Phillips Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 20-May 29, 2005).

Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 21, 2007-January 13, 2008).

Themes and Variations: Musical Drawings and Prints. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 25-May 17, 2015).

Pure Color: Pastels from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 19, 2016-March 19, 2017).

Collecting Dreams: Odilon Redon. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 19, 2021-January 23, 2022).

Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 20-April 30, 2023).

Cite this page

{{cite web|title=Orpheus|url=https://clevelandart.org/art/1926.25|author=Odilon Redon|year=c. 1903–10|access-date=02 November 2023|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

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