Odilon Redon (1840 – 1916)

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Odilon Redon (1840 – 1916), “Ophelia among the Flowers” (1905), Pastel on Paper, 64x91cm, National Gallery, London.

On April 20, 1840, birth of Odilon Redon. French symbolist painter who combined the macabre with beauty and light. Redon’s paintings are a synthesis of nightmares and dreams, as in “Ophelia among the Flowers” from 1905. Ophelia is a character from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Towards the end of the the play she drowns in a pond, surrounded by flowers.