Devil take a head in the air - Odilon Redon

A haunting charcoal study by Symbolist artist Odilon Redon, depicting a winged figure carrying a disembodied head through a dreamlike, atmospheric sky.

Odilon Redon, a central figure in the Symbolist movement, produced this work during a period when he focused almost exclusively on charcoal drawings, which he termed his 'noirs'. These works explore the boundaries between the conscious mind and the dream state, often featuring bizarre, hybrid creatures and disembodied forms that defy rational explanation.

In this composition, a winged, devilish figure carries a large, detached human head through the sky. The scene is rendered with a mastery of light and shadow, where the deep, velvety blacks of the charcoal contrast against the warm, ochre-toned paper. The figure and the head appear as silhouettes against the atmospheric void, while a faint, dark outline of a building sits on the horizon, grounding the otherwise ethereal and unsettling narrative in a recognisable, albeit gloomy, reality.

Redon was deeply influenced by the literature of Edgar Allan Poe and the scientific observations of Charles Darwin, both of which inform the strange, evolutionary, and psychological nature of his subjects. Rather than depicting the physical world, he sought to represent the internal life of the imagination. The ambiguity of the subject matter invites the viewer to project their own interpretations onto the scene, as the artist provides no clear narrative resolution. The technical execution demonstrates Redon's ability to manipulate charcoal to achieve a range of textures, from the dense, opaque shadows of the figures to the lighter, more diffused tones of the surrounding space. This print captures the specific tonal qualities of the original charcoal medium, offering a glimpse into the dark, poetic vision that defined Redon's early career.