Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Redon and Fantin-Latour - Study Drawings at Musée d'Orsay

Odilon Redon
Ball
ca. 1885
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Odilon Redon
Old Age
ca. 1865
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Odilon Redon
Half-Length Figure
(design for frontispiece, To Edgar Poe)
ca. 1881-82
drawing
(print study)
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Odilon Redon
Portrait of Madame Odilon Redon
ca. 1890
drawing (colored chalks)
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Odilon Redon
Ari Redon at age nine
1898
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Odilon Redon
Redon's Studio
ca. 1900
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Odilon Redon
Redon's Studio
ca. 1900
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Fantin-Latour
Around the Piano
1885
drawing
(study for painting)
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Fantin-Latour
Homage to Baudelaire
ca. 1871
drawing
(study for painting)
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Fantin-Latour
Homage to Delacroix
1863
drawing
(study for painting)
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Fantin-Latour
Woman Embroidering
ca. 1860
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Fantin-Latour
Two Women seated at a Table
1877
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Fantin-Latour
Woman seated at a Table
ca. 1870
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Fantin-Latour
Académie
ca. 1860
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Fantin-Latour
Self Portrait
ca. 1860
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Tableau

Some pure revolutionary moment – some Zapata, say
bludgeoning open the heavy doors of the hacienda at last
and the rag-tag rabble behind him bursting in
all shouts and bandoleras among the vases on their shelves,
the still-open rosewood jewel case, the shallow drawers of the escritoire
where the papers had been snatched up, cool air now just
settled after the landlord's abrupt departure. I have imagined
two distinct worlds here. Outside, fields
of corn, beans, cotton, and little familiar huts
in the far distance, the sun telling its old story
to the dirt. Inside, sheer potential: a clawfoot tub
to be filled with pigs' blood, or a small Manet
of some Europeans in top hats ripe for slashing,
or the wine cellar, as always, a standing invitation.

Endless possibilities – and they've all occurred – for actions god-like
and bestial, the premise of clean beginnings
held out like a snapshot. The table is set.
There are the casements that could be thrown open,
the larder full of gleanings. There are the agents
before history: not yet a vanguard, or louts, hooligan
bandidos, founding fathers, terrorists, progenitors
of a dynasty of dim, paid-off bureaucrats. In this moment
we can see men as anything they might become.
They are stopped here, at the first stage of entrance,
their boots just two footsteps away from the Persian carpets,
their hands undecided, still purposeless, jutting
stiffly from the wrists as they gawk now suddenly
transfixed before a wall of full-length mirrors.

– Don Bogen (1990)