It Is a Skull Wreathed with Roses. It Dominates a Woman's Torso of Pearly Whiteness - Odilon Redon
Archival giclée
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Description
A haunting lithograph from the 1883 'Les Origines' series, capturing a surreal juxtaposition of a floral-wreathed skull and a luminous female torso.
This lithograph belongs to the series titled 'Les Origines', published in 1883. Odilon Redon, a central figure in the Symbolist movement, utilised the medium of lithography to explore the boundaries between reality and the subconscious. His 'noirs'—the term he used for his charcoal drawings and lithographs—are defined by a mastery of light and shadow, where deep, velvety blacks emerge to frame ethereal, often unsettling subjects. In this composition, a skull adorned with roses rests upon the torso of a woman. The contrast between the organic, decaying nature of the skull and the smooth, luminous rendering of the skin creates a tension characteristic of Redon's work. The artist avoids clear narrative, preferring to evoke a dreamlike state where objects lose their conventional meaning. The figure appears to emerge from a void, with the light catching the curves of the torso while the surrounding space remains consumed by darkness. Redon was influenced by the writings of Edgar Allan Poe and the scientific curiosity of his era, particularly the study of biology and microscopic life. He often combined anatomical accuracy with imaginative, phantasmagorical elements. This print demonstrates his technical skill in lithography, using a range of textures to suggest the softness of flesh against the hard, porous surface of bone. The work invites the viewer to contemplate themes of mortality and beauty without relying on traditional allegorical structures. It remains a primary example of how Redon used monochromatic printing to achieve a psychological depth that colour often failed to capture in his earlier career.
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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.
It Is a Skull Wreathed with Roses. It Dominates a Woman's Torso of Pearly Whiteness - Odilon Redon
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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
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- Frames in black, natural wood, dark wood or white
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- 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
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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
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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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