Odilon Redon (1840-1916)
Odilon Redon (1840-1916) was to have a profound influence on the Symbolists, as well as the Nabis and even the Fauves, because of his remarkably distinctive use of colour and black. He held a genuine fascination for this non-colour. For him, black was the most essential of colours.
In all his work, reality was merely a starting point and not an end in itself. He liked to say that he obeyed only his instinct in order to create and to construct his own distinctive iconography which made the visible invisible.
During his Noir period, he explored every aspect of the human soul but from 1900 onwards, he worked in a more detached manner, strongly intent on abstraction, on themes taken from Classical mythology and western literature.
His subject matters then took on a poetic quality, tending towards a "blending" of colours which would become his trademark.
