Light - Odilon Redon
Archival giclée
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Description
A haunting lithograph by Symbolist artist Odilon Redon, featuring a colossal, ethereal head looming over two small figures in a dark, architectural space.
This lithograph by Odilon Redon, titled Light (Lumière), belongs to the artist's series of 'noirs', a collection of works executed primarily in charcoal and lithographic crayon. Redon, a central figure in the Symbolist movement, often explored the boundaries between the conscious mind and the dream state. His work rejects the objective observation of the natural world in favour of internal visions and psychological states.
The composition presents a stark contrast between the monumental and the diminutive. A colossal, ethereal head occupies the upper portion of the frame, framed by an architectural arch. The figure appears lost in contemplation, its features rendered with soft, smudged strokes that suggest a ghostly or celestial presence. Below this giant form, two small, dark figures stand in a shadowed interior, looking upward toward the light emanating from the head above. The scale disparity creates a sense of mystery, suggesting a narrative rooted in myth or spiritual revelation rather than physical reality.
Redon utilised the unique properties of lithography to achieve a wide range of tonal values. The deep, velvety blacks of the foreground figures and the surrounding architecture provide a heavy anchor for the composition, while the lighter, hatched areas around the giant head create a luminous, atmospheric effect. The artist's technique relies on the layering of marks to build texture and depth, allowing the paper to show through in places to represent the source of light. This print demonstrates Redon's ability to manipulate shadow and form to evoke a sense of the uncanny. It invites the viewer to consider the relationship between the mundane world and the unseen forces that shape human experience, characteristic of his broader body of work during the late nineteenth century.
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Because every print is made to order, we don't offer change-of-mind returns, refunds or exchanges. If your order arrives faulty, damaged or incorrect, we'll replace it free of charge — just contact us within 48 hours of delivery. See our refunds page for full details.
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Manufacturing
Each print is produced to order using 12-colour giclée printing on FSC-certified archival paper. Designed in Britain and printed at your nearest production hub to reduce waste and speed up delivery.
Care and materials
Specific Features
Every Solis piece is made to order with archival, gallery-quality materials built to last.
- Museum-grade giclée printing for rich, fade-resistant colour
- Archival matte fine-art paper, FSC-certified
- Multiple sizes and framing options available
- Frames in black, natural wood, dark wood or white
- Framed prints arrive ready to hang
Care & Cleaning
To keep your artwork looking its best:
- Dust gently with a soft, dry cloth
- Avoid prolonged direct sunlight
- Never use liquid cleaners on the print or canvas surface
- Keep in a dry, room-temperature space
- Handle prints with clean, dry hands
Materials & Sizing
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
Light - 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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