Symbolic Head
Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916)
c. 1890
- Medium
- oil on paper mounted on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Framed: 69 x 54.5 x 7.5 cm (27 3/16 x 21 7/16 x 2 15/16 in.); Unframed: 53.3 x 38 cm (21 x 14 15/16 in.)
- Culture
- France, 19th century
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Gift of the Mildred Andrews Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
One of Redon’s favorite themes was a head depicted in profile, sometimes separated from the body to symbolize the spirit released from the material world. It also suggests a metaphor for abandoning physical reality for the inner realm of dreams, fantasy, and poetic reverie. This painting conveys the idea of inward-turning vision by framing the head in a series of collapsing rectangles. Conservation analysis confirms that the figure is a woman wearing a helmet and holding a green staff in her right hand.
