Tag: Symbolism

Artist Feature: Who was Odilon Redon?

By admin

On August 20, 2015

In Artist Features

Self-Portrait, 1880, Odilon Redon

Movement/Style: Symbolism

Country: Odilon Redon spent his life in France, growing up in Bordeaux and later living and working in Paris.

Years: 1840 – 1916

Well, who was he?

Odilon Redon was part of the Symbolism movement, a European movement at the end of the nineteenth century. Symbolist art is similar to Surrealism in that it doesn’t seem to make any sense. However, there is one big difference between Symbolism and Surrealism: In Surrealism, it’s not supposed to make any sense. But in Symbolism, everything means something.

“How can I love artists like Gauguin when I know so much of his work was exploitative and racist?”

By admin

On August 11, 2015

In Reader Questions

Manao tupapau (The Spirit of the Dead Keep Watch) (1892)

Reader question: “How can I love artists like Gauguin when I know so much of his work was exploitative and racist? How can we look past the artist and appreciate the art? Should we?”

That’s a great question! This is something that a lot of people struggle with. It’s sometimes hard to admit that beautiful and famous art can also be based on racist and sexist attitudes.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Paul Gauguin, he was a French Post-Impressionist/Symbolist artist who famously moved to Tahiti in the late 19^th century and painted the people (more specifically, the women) that he met there.