Vase of Flowers (Primary Title)
Vase de Fleurs (Former Title)
Odilon Redon, French, 1840 - 1916 (Artist)
By the end of the 1800s, pastels and oil had become Redon's preferred media. Maurice Denis recognized Redon's use of the formal tools of art to express emotional states of experience and saw certain affinities with the painters of the Nabi group. Redon was open to learning from these younger painters, and he began to share their tendencies for Japonism and interest in exploring decorative emphases and expressive uses of color. Along with portraits, mythological and literary subjects, and decorative works, floral still lives such as this one became a focus of Redon's painting. Color became an additional means for the artist to explore experiences beyond the ordinary visible reality, and Redon explicitly associated his vibrant use of color with personal happiness. His other mainstays of this period are the Japanese-influenced style of brushwork and the overriding decorative treatment of the composition, which elevates the interest of this still life beyond the merely representational. Although the flowers in the vase retain an aspect of direct mimesis, their predominating colors obliterate the scene's natural perspective by abstracting what is probably the background's wallpaper motif into a flurry of petal-like brushstrokes.
Odilon Redon
lower right corner
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
2019-2020: "Van Gogh Monet Degas, The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts", Palazzo Zabarella, Padua, Italy, October 26, 2019 - March 1, 2020
2019-2021: Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, and Their Times: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN, February 2 - May 5, 2019; Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS, April 4, 2020 - January 10, 2021
2018-2019: "Van Gogh, Monet, Degas: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts", The Frick Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, March 17 - July 15, 2018; Oklahoma Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, June 22 - September 22, 2019
1973: French Paintings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, 1973
1955: Natures mortes de Gericault a nos jours, Saint-Etienne, musee des Beaux-Arts, 1955, no. 16, p. 13, fig. 15.
O.R., Paris, 1920, no. 71
2019-2021: Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, and Their Times: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN, February 2 - May 5, 2019; Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS, April 4, 2020 - January 10, 2021
2018-2019: "Van Gogh, Monet, Degas: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts", The Frick Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, March 17 - July 15, 2018; Oklahoma Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, June 22 - September 22, 2019
1973: French Paintings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, 1973
1955: Natures mortes de Gericault a nos jours, Saint-Etienne, musee des Beaux-Arts, 1955, no. 16, p. 13, fig. 15.
O.R., Paris, 1920, no. 71
Image released via Creative Commons CC-BY-NC
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