Odilion Redon (1840-1916) was an intriguing artist. Working
through the turn of the century, he often engaged with the nineteenth-century
fascination with ideas of evolution coupled with fears of degeneration. With the
awareness of Charles Darwin’s theories of how man developed also came a fear
that perhaps mankind could ‘evolve’ into something less intelligent. The
medical sciences were advancing in their understanding of hereditary
conditions and so a kind of inversion of Darwin’s theories where the defects of
an individual were passed on rather than their strengths became a fear that was
felt by many.
Redon made his name through his Noirs drawings. Entirely monochrome, these works explored ideas of
botany and evolution, whilst always giving the ‘creatures’ a human and
empathetic quality. From the 1890s, Redon began displaying works in colour
(previous to this he had only exhibited his Noir
works). These pieces engaged more with spiritual ideas. Around him were artists
and radical thinkers of the age who were slowly converting to Christianity, and
who turned their evangelistic pressures onto Redon himself. In the 1890s
Joris-Karl Huysmans, author of the controversial ÁRebours and friend of Redon converted, while the artist’s friend
and patron Gabriel Frizeau put continual pressure on Redon to convert to Catholicism.*
Through his production of the 1890s it could be argued that Redon was working
out his interest in religion and attempting to reach his own conclusions about
a spiritualism that he could engage with. Eventually Redon came to believe that
the Eastern religions of Buddhism and Hinduism had more ‘truth’ in them than
the conservative Christianity of the West; however, in all of these
philosophies it was their other-worldly aspects and spirituality which
attracted him, rather than their moralistic approach to life.
Le Grande Vitrail
(1904, another work in the Orsay in Paris) seems to me to encapsulate this
sensibility in Redon. This work draws
attention by the brilliant blues of the glass in the large stained-glass window
that is the subject of the work. Redon’s colour pastels are characterised by a luminosity
which immediately gives them a transcendental spiritual element; these works
are not about the physical and material, they ask us to consider the unseen
truths in the world around us. In Le
grande vitrail Redon combines the dark materiality of his Noirs with the transcendence of his
colour images. As the viewer looks beyond the attractive colour in the window,
the dark themes of the ecclesiastical interior come into focus. It is almost as
if Redon is attempting to trick the viewer to engage with his dark works: the
creatures that he includes carry a sinister gothic horror.
Kneeling in the foreground are two children. We believe them
to be children by their size and proportions, and the way in which they cling
to another, as infants do. However, Redon replaces both the children with
metaphors: one has a grief-stricken face which appears somehow older than her
body suggests, and from her back are the suggestion of angelic wings, while the
other’s head is replaced by a hollow skull. These beings represent a kind of
half-life. They foretell of creatures in the Afterlife: what they will become.
Given the contemporary interest in disease and decay, it could be assumed that
the hopelessness of these beings relates to physical defects; however, the
juxtaposition in this work with heavily Christian spirituality suggests
something more philosophical.
Diagonally across the image from the two infants is a
carving in the stone of the pillar to the side of the window. This presents a
Madonna cradling the infant Jesus. She curls from the top of her spine so her head
covers the child in a protective embrace. This scene exists outside of the
safety of the heavenly realm which is presented in the window, and there is the
sense that the Madonna – finding herself in the dark earthly realm – is
desperate to protect her son from the threat around. This threat exists in the
shadowy corners of the periphery of the work. As with James Ensor’s work Redon
hides a series of disturbing faces amongst the stonework of the church.
Gargoyles look down upon the scene from the top of the tall pillars, and where
the decoration at the top of the Corinthian columns either side of the window
should be gentle curls, instead Redon draws in a group of skulls. Below the
window is a tomb, and at the top right the figure of a man silently and
morbidly views the scene, unable or unwilling to intervene by moving past the
pillar which segregates him from the main part of the composition.
Meanwhile, just off-centre in the window itself stands the
man Christ. He appears passive with his hands crossed in front of him, and his
head turned slightly heavenward. Around him a few figures kneel and gaze up at
him, while the brilliant blue of the background is offset by Redon’s
characteristic metallic gold, suggesting clouds of angels behind him. This
window does not seem to present the earthly realm; it may be a heavenly
setting, or the collision of heaven and earth that the Bible foretells. Either
way it is wholly inaccessible to the material world that Redon presents around
the window.
This image could be read as a presentation of hope and
redemption in the promise of salvation through Christ; however this
interpretation would deny the clues that Redon leaves that suggest something darker. Neither the carved Madonna, nor the crouched infants in the
foreground engage with the window. They do not see the figure of Christ as a
promise of redemption. Instead this work seems to suggest that the earthly
world is too damaged for the hope of Christian salvation to apply anymore. The
children are already becoming damaged creatures of the afterlife, despite their
innocence (which is suggested by the wings). Disease and decay – symptoms of
the fallen world – have taken hold of contemporary society; how can the
heavenly scene in the window have any relevance to them. The brilliant colours
of the stained glass allow no light in to shine upon the scene within the
building.
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