Child's Head With Flowers
1897
Medium
Lithograph in black on green wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 29.2 × 24.7 cm (11 1/2 × 9 3/4 in.); Sheet: 37.8 × 29.2 cm (14 15/16 × 11 1/2 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
93569
Art Historical Context
Odilon Redon's *Child's Head With Flowers (1897) captures a tender, dreamlike portrait of innocence framed by blooming blossoms, rendered in a delicate lithograph in black on green wove paper. Measuring 29.2 × 24.7 cm, this intimate image exemplifies Redon's mastery of Symbolism, a late-19th-century movement that prioritized emotion, mystery, and the subconscious over realistic depiction. As a French artist (1840–1916), Redon was renowned for his "No"—monochromatic works like this one—that evoke ethereal realms through subtle shading and suggestion, bridging Romanticism and emerging modernism....
About the Artist
Odilon Redon · 1840–1916
Odilon Redon (1840-1916) was a French Symbolist painter, printmaker, and pastellist whose visionary art bridged the 19th-century Symbolist movement and 20th-century Surrealism. Born Bertrand Redon in Bordeaux on April 20, 1840, he earned the nickname "Odilon" from his mother Odile. His father, who made his fortune in the Louisiana slave trade, conceived Odilon in New Orleans before the family retu...