Odilon Redon, Behold The Good Goddess, The Indeeene Of The Mountains

Mellerio 148, very nice proof on chine volant, without letter, from a later print made by Clot around 1909
Lacquered frame in the Flemish style of the 16th century, Napoleon III period

In Bordeaux in 1865, the meeting of Odilon Redon with the draftsman and engraver Rodolphe Bresdin constitutes a crucial moment for the career of the artist. It is indeed thanks to the singularity of Bresdin's art that Redon was introduced to the techniques of printmaking. Subsequently, Odilon Redon produced his Noirs, a terminology grouping together all of his charcoals and lithographs. From 1879, Odilon Redon took up lithography, notably publishing albums, the first of which was entitled Dans le rêve (1879). Odilon Redon's love of literature is the subject of lithographs around the poem The Temptation of Saint Anthony by Gustave Flaubert, published in 1874. The trilogy devoted to this literary work includes the following collections: The Temptation of Saint Anthony of 1888, To Gustave Flaubert of 1889 and The Temptation of Saint Anthony of 1896. The subject of Flaubert's poem, dealing with the apparitions of the hermit Saint Anthony, thus offers Redon the possibility of approaching, once again, a notion is dear to him: the fantastic. Within these different plates, the artist has also represented motifs that he likes and which turn out to be recurring in his work, such as the face in profile and the tree. The apparitions of Saint Anthony are translated by visions generally tormented by Death or imaginary beings. Moreover, this highlighting of worry and trouble is perceptible thanks to swirling, dark and mysterious compositions. The Indian is one of the nicknames of Cybele, a Phrygian divinity adopted by Rome. Often accompanied by two lions, she personifies the reproductive force of nature, and was likened to Rhea, the mother of the Gods, the Magna Mater in Greek mythology. His cult was accompanied by orgiastic rites and ritual mutilations. Redon presents it to us from the bust, the figure in profile. Her neck is bare, her bodice blooms with a bouquet of flowers, and behind her head a star shines between two mountains. “Here is the good goddess, she brings joy, heals the sick, procures inheritances, and satisfies lovers… She hovers in the blue ether. Vast as the wind, it surrounds the World, it ripens the harvests, it swells the bark... It loves the sound of eardrums, the stamping of feet, the howling of wolves, the sweet sap, the tear salted by blood... It asks for the blood of a pure…” Excerpt from The Temptations of Saint-Antoine, Chapter V, Gustave Flaubert.