Green Death
Odilon Redon
French, 1840–1916
c. 1905
An oil-on-canvas vision by Odilon Redon in which a luminous green, spectral figure rises from a dark, spiraling void to evoke an unsettling, symbolic meditation on death and the unconscious.
What strikes you is the shocking chromatic contrast—the sickly green, elongated figure set against a roiling, abyssal spiral and a toasted red-orange ground, topped by a pale, moonlike disk that reads as both celestial and oppressive.
A late Symbolist work, it shows Redon using color and dreamlike imagery to make inner states visible, helping to push modern art toward abstraction and the psychological territories later explored by Surrealism.
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
21 5/8 x 18 1/4" (54.9 x 46.3 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Louise Reinhardt Smith Bequest
Accession
790.1995
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
