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)