Redon

by Michael Francis Gibson

Book by Gibson, Michael Francis

Genres: Art, Biography, Art and Photography, Nonfiction, Art History

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[JW van der Merwe · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author captured the development of Redon as a person as well as his art. In this series I enjoyed this book more than the others. Redon as a person I think apart from his dreamlike paintings i.e. the grandfather of surrealism, I think was very calculated in what he did. Some comments in the book are fascinating - "The merest sketch or scribble...in my portfolio took on a new sense. And that was the true date of my determination". I think he is one of the artists who started out dark (his black era) and moved towards the light and colours - exactly the same happened in his life and he ended not in poverty and as a well-known artist. This is material for a longer more exhaustive biography. This was a good read.

[YQ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[WAIA · Rating 3 out of 5]

Looking into for uni. Interesting stuff. What an artist. Contextual information provided by Gibson is very worthwhile. Im looking forward to reading Odilon Redon's personal notes...

[Janet Freedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

In school, my art history books illustrated discussions of Redon's work by showing us his many black and white pieces - works in charcoals and lithographs of some rather ghoulish subjects - eyeballs, heads without bodies, smiling giant spiders - little of which I found interesting or attractive. This book contains some of those works but also many of his later works, some of which are a rich explosion of color. His subjects were vases of flowers, portraits; mythological, literary and religious subjects. I especially enjoyed the works that grew more abstract - "Mysteries of the Sea", "Underwater Vision" and "Flowers Red Panel". The author discuses Redon's childhood (which may have been the source of his earlier black and white work) and his widening work up until his death in 1916.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is mostly just an art album with some biographical and interpretive text about the great Symbolist painter Redon, and it has the annoying tendency of a lot of these albums that the art on a given page will often have no connection with the text on it.

But SO PRETTY. SUCH ART. WOW.