False Glory
c. 1885
Medium
Various charcoals, with incising, stumping, wiping, erasing, and subtractive brushwork, on pale-pink wove paper altered to a pale, golden tone
Dimensions
49.9 × 33.1 cm (19 11/16 × 13 1/16 in.)
Classification
charcoal
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
144358
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This eerie drawing may have had familial ramifications. In the 1880s Redon’s younger brother, Gaston, won the coveted Prix de Rome in architecture, which may have rekindled a kind of sibling rivalry and increased the artist’s own feelings of inadequacy. Reiterating a motif that he had used before, Redon seems to have included a solar eclipse in one of the eyes of the laurel-wreathed bust’s masklike face.
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...