Below, I Saw the Vaporous Contours of a Human Form - Odilon Redon
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Description
A haunting lithograph from 1883 by Odilon Redon, depicting a spectral figure emerging from deep, textured shadows.
This lithograph is plate IV from the album 'À Edgar Poe', a collection of six prints published by Odilon Redon in 1883. Redon, a central figure in the Symbolist movement, focused his work on the exploration of the subconscious, dreams, and the macabre. This specific image captures a scene of unsettling ambiguity, where a seated figure, rendered in ghostly, luminous tones, sits before a table. The surrounding space is dominated by an oppressive, textured darkness, out of which emerges a pair of disembodied, wide-set eyes.
The technique employed here demonstrates Redon's mastery of lithography. He utilised the medium to create a range of blacks, from the deep, velvety shadows of the background to the subtle, granular greys that define the figure. The contrast between the light-filled silhouette and the encroaching void creates a sense of psychological tension. By avoiding clear narrative resolution, Redon invites the viewer to engage with the image as a projection of internal states rather than a depiction of external reality. The text at the bottom, 'je vis dessus le contour vaporeux d'une forme humaine', provides a literal anchor to the visual experience, yet the image remains firmly rooted in the realm of the uncanny.
Redon's work during this period was heavily influenced by the literature of Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Baudelaire. He sought to create images that functioned like music, suggesting moods and states of mind rather than describing objects. This print is a prime example of his 'noirs', a series of charcoal drawings and lithographs that defined his early career. The composition relies on the interplay of light and shadow to suggest a presence that is both ethereal and menacing, characteristic of his unique approach to the graphic arts.
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Specific Features
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Museum-grade giclée on FSC-certified archival matte paper, with framed and canvas options.
- Paper sizes: A4, A3, A2, A1, A0 and B2 (50×70 cm)
- Canvas: XS (20×30 cm) to Large (60×90 cm)
- Frames: black, natural wood, dark wood or white
Below, I Saw the Vaporous Contours of a Human Form - Odilon Redon
Artist Biography
Odilon Redon
For the first two decades of his career he worked exclusively in black: charcoal drawings and lithographs he called his noirs. Floating eyeballs, severed heads with closed lids, spiders with human faces, plants that grow teeth. The images are hallucinatory but precisely rendered, closer to medical illustration than fantasy. He published his first lithograph album, Dans le Reve, in 1879. Nobody noticed.
Recognition came sideways. In 1884, Joris-Karl Huysmans published A rebours, a novel about a reclusive aesthete who decorates his rooms with Redon's prints. The book became a cult text for the Symbolist movement and Redon became famous by association. Stephane Mallarme, the Symbolist poet, became a close friend. Redon also completed a series of lithographs dedicated to Edgar Allan Poe, whose poems Mallarme and Baudelaire had translated into French.
After 1900 he stopped making noirs entirely and shifted to colour: pastels and oils of flowers, mythological figures and butterflies in palettes that anticipate Matisse. The transition was so complete that the Surrealists later claimed the black work while the Fauves claimed the colour, and neither group seemed to notice they were talking about the same person.
He studied under Jean-Leon Gerome at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, which is an unlikely pairing: Gerome painted Roman gladiators with photographic precision. Redon painted eyeballs attached to balloons. Goya and Delacroix were the influences that actually stuck.
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