At the beginning of his career, Redon worked almost exclusively in black-and-white. He created lithographs and drawings that he later referred to as his “noirs” — his “blacks.”
It was during this period that some of his most famous fantastical images emerged: a giant eye, human heads without bodies, and a crying spider with a human face.
These were not illustrations for fantastic stories.
Redon was trying to make visible what exists within the human mind: fear, solitude, dreams, and anxiety.
One of Redon’s central motifs was the eye.
For the artist, it was more than an organ of sight. It became an image of consciousness, observation, and inner vision.
Redon never explained his symbols. His works ask questions rather than provide answers.
That is why the same image can be perceived in entirely different ways: as a dream, a memory, a fear, or a vision.
Later, Redon’s palette changed completely.
Black gave way to deep blues, purples, yellows, and pinks. Yet the fantastical world of the artist remained.
In "The Cyclops", the creature’s enormous eye watches a sleeping nymph from behind the rocks.
The mythological story becomes a strange, almost intimate scene — there is no conventional image of a terrifying monster here.
Redon seems to invite us to look at a familiar myth from within.
Redon had a profound influence on 20th-century art and became one of the precursors of Surrealism.
But perhaps the most interesting part of his legacy lies elsewhere.
He showed that an artist does not have to depict what exists.
Art can give form to what exists only within us.
