Odilon Redon > Quotes

“I have tried to put the real at the service of the unreal.”
― Odilon Redon

“Black is the most essential of all colors. Above all, if I may say so, it draws its excitement and vitality from deep and secret sources of health...One must admire black. Nothing can debauch it.”
― Odilon Redon

“When I am alone, I love the wide roads. There, I have conversations with myself. My free steps move easily and my body leaves my spirit free of obstacles; it discourses, it reasons, it presses me with questions.”
― Odilon Redon, To Myself: Notes on Life, Art and Artists

“Nobody will enter into your hopes: dreams, desires, projects are weak and solitary abstractions that nobody will formulate with us. In his aspirations toward the future or beyond it, man is unhappy because he is alone, all that he sees, all that he is, makes him suffer, except for what he loves. If I ahd a son to direct, I would tell him: 'Leave, go alone in the midst of men since you must become one of them. The individual soars only in liberty.”
― Odilon Redon, To Myself: Notes on Life, Art and Artists

“One must respect black, nothing prostitutes it. It does not please the eye and it awakens no sensuality. It is the agent of the mind far more than the most beautiful color to the palette or prism”
― Odilon Redon

“It is nature also who orders us to obey the gifts she has given us. Mine have led me to dreams; I submitted to the torments of imagination and the surprises she gave me under my pencil; but I directed and led those surprises in accordance with the laws of the organism of art which I know, which I feel, with the single goal of producing in the spectator, by sudden attraction, the whole evocation, and the whole enticement of the uncertain within the confines of thought.”
― Odilon Redon, To Myself: Notes on Life, Art and Artists

“I venerate with emotion everything that comes from the heart when it is simple, silent and confident. It is a sensual pleasure, subtle and touching, to try to reach characters through the varied outer appearances of human conditions.”
― Odilon Redon, To Myself: Notes on Life, Art and Artists

“J'ai fait un art selon moi. Je l'ai fait avec les yeux ouverts sur les merveilles du monde visible, et, quoi qu'on en ait pu dire, avec le souci constant d'obéir aux lois du naturel et de la vie.”
― Odilon Redon, À soi-même : Journal

“Only twice did he try color lithography, then in its heyday in France. He felt that color “cheapened” the essential character of the medium. In his Journals and in his letters are many references to this art form, of which one will serve as example: 

"Black is the most essential of all colors. Above all, if I may say so, it draws its excitement and vitality from deep and secret sources of health.... One must admire black. Nothing can debauch it. It does not please the eye and awakens no sensuality. It is an agent of the spirit far more than the fine color of the palette or the prism. Thus a good lithograph is more likely to be appreciated in a serious country, where inclement nature compels man to remain confined to his home, cultivating his own thoughts, that is to say in the countries of the north rather than those of the south, where the sun draws us outside ourselves and delights us. Lithography enjoys little esteem in France, except when it has been cheapened by the addition of color, which produces a different result, destroying its specific qualities so that it comes to resemble a cheap colored print....”
― Odilon Redon, The Graphic Works of Odilon Redon

“Dear and vast country, which I admire, and which moves me so much, you, whose low sky caresses and consoles me; you, whose deep clouds and green hills almost bring me the memory of a happy childhood in a world where happiness and innocence are unknown; you take weakness from my mind. The mournful sound of your waters today speaks of death and melancholy; awake in me strength and confidence.
Oh sadness, infinite grace, secret and aristocratic ardor, loftiness, pride spreading out from your wounds; there is strong confidence to be found at the very source of this pain, when it is gentle and without anger.
Oh mountains, the small man climbing you is lost in your immensity you will never be divided; your domain belongs to all. Your borders, so high, so close to those beautiful clouds, that caress your highest peaks, are next to the sky, where everyone can be inspired and uplifted. Mountains and clouds, region of both the ideal and of dreams.”
― Odilon Redon, To Myself: Notes on Life, Art and Artists