Day 316 - Redon


 October 14, 2022

Gallery 813 is out of sync chronologically with the preceding and following galleries, focusing as it does on Symbolist images (I can't say I understand these, really) and on Art Nouveau works. The gallery consists of two parts, one holding a number of paintings, the second containing the dining room from the Parisian apartment of Auguste Rateau, a connoisseur of Art Nouveau works. The room is particularly notable for its walls painted with wisteria and its six torchiere lamps whose sinuous, curving alabaster shades remind me of shells.

The paintings include several flower paintings by Odilon Redon.  My favorite is one he painted around 1912-1914, toward the end of his life.  Measuring about 25 inches high and 20 inches wide, the canvas  shows several kinds of flowers - among them poppies, carnations, sunflowers, and daisies -  arranged luxuriantly in a tall white vase. But what makes the painting special for me is that flowers and vase are suspended as if in midair against a dark mauve ground that makes the colors and forms "pop."

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