Redon’s Pavots et Oeillets de Poète… (c.1906)
Redon, Pavots et Oeillets de Poète dans un Vase Bleu (c.1906) Oil on canvas. Private Collection
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This glorious painting of poppies and Sweet Williams conveys Odilon Redon's mystical love of both flowers and colors.
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Redon, The Eye like a Strange Balloon Moves Towards the Infinite (1882) Lithograph on paper, dedicated to Edgar Allan Poe
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His oeuvre is awash in eyes, the avenue of sight. They come in all varieties: flying towards the infinite like this one......
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Redon, Vision sous-meme (c.1900) Pastel on grey paper. Musée d'Orsay, Paris
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....or diving down under the sea to the subconscious as here.
Did anyone notice, though, that I left the title of the still-life untranslated? No English phrase could do it justice because Sweet Williams, a variety of carnation, are known in French as Oeillets du Poète or "the little eyes of the poet". Redon, a visual poet himself, is painting a flower to which he felt deeply connected.
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Right: Redon, Self-portrait (1880) Oil on canvas. Musée d'Orsay, Paris
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Blue appears to have been Redon's favorite color and his self-portraits suggest that his own eyes were either blue or green or, at least, he imagined them as such.
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Redon, Pavots et Oeillets de Poète dans un Vase Bleu (c.1906)
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The "blue vase" then, I would hazard a guess, represents through a metamorphosis of visual form the sun-lit blue of Redon's inner eye. Out of it then spring the "little eyelets of the poet", his eye's "children" surging upwards like the balloon-eye on a background the color of unpainted canvas.
See conclusion below.
We cannot tell whether Redon associated the poppies in the vase with opium but if he did it would be in keeping with works by other major artists in which alcohol, tobacco or drugs symbolize stimulants for the painter's imagination. Poppies and Sweet Williams in a Blue Vase is a beautiful painting in any language; it's just more meaningful in French.
More Works by Redon
Notes:
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