Odilon Redon Enter a
feeling, not
a gallery.
Choose a mood and the room itself answers — the light cools or warms, the air changes pace, and only the works that carry that feeling step forward from the dark. Everything else recedes into shadow.
Odilon Redon
Early Life, Family and Training Born Bertrand-Jean Redon on 20 April 1840 in Bordeaux, Aquitaine, France, the boy who would become known as Odilon Redon entered a world shaped by his family's origins. His mother, Marie Guérin, was a French Creole from Île Bourbon, and it was from her name that he eventually acquired his chosen moniker. Even in his youth, a certain visual aptitude was evident; at the age of ten, he was awarded a drawing
prize at school, a small triumph that hinted at the sensitivity he would later apply to his craft. The path toward an artistic life was not a straight one. Though he began formal study of drawing at fifteen, his father’s wishes initially pulled him toward the structured world of architecture. This pursuit led him to Paris, where in 1864 he briefly studied painting under Jean-Léon Gérôme. However, the rigid requirements of architectur…