You are viewing petrusplancius

 
Previous | Memories | Share | Next
 
petrusplancius
petrusplancius
25 January 2013 @ 09:39 pm
Odilon Redon, Some Portraits  
photo redon-domecy_zpscdb67749.jpg

Baroness Robert de Domecy, 1900. Her husband was a friend and patron of Redon, who painted some panels for his chateau in Burgundy. I like this picture the best of all Redon's portraits, for the refinement in the portrayal of the features and sense of inwardness. He painted one or two other portraits of her, including this, which |I don't like as much:
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=257416


photo RedonPortraitofMadameArthurFontaine1901_zps9ebd9cf9.jpg

Mme Arthur Fontaine, 1901. Her husband was an industrialist and notable patron of the arts, there is a (not particularly attractive) portrait of him by Vuillard, link at the bottom of this article on him:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Fontaine
His correspondence with the poet Francis Jammes was published in the 50s.
This very fine pastel was painted while the Fontaines were visiting Redon and his wife at the sea-side town of St. Georges-de-Didonne on the southwest coast of France in September 1901.

photo redon-portrait-of-madame-redon_zps3dd2ac0f.jpg

Camille Convalescente, 1911. The painter's wife while she was recovering from an illness (hence the rather strange character of this portrayal of her).

photo redonTheyellowshawlPortraitofCamilleRedonc1899_zpsffab99d9.jpg

The Yellow Shawl, a portrait of Camille Redon from 1899.

photo aredonmarquisedegonet1907z_zps32beba8c.jpg

The Marquise de Gonet, 1907. The Marquis had a chateau near Carcassonne, which is now owned by the municipality:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPqoMRsgNB4
This painting was included among a collection of paintings belonging to the family which was sold at Christies in 1997; it apparently included 10 'important' Redons (as auctioneers like to express it), so it looks as if the Marquis may have been another of Redon's aristocratic patrons.

photo aredonjeannechiane_zpsfa8da7d6.jpg

Jeanne Chaine, 1903

photo redon-portrait-of-simone-fayet_zps3d2cc1b8.jpg

Simone Fayet, 1907; he also painted a portrait of her in her First Communion dress in the following year:
http://www.wikipaintings.org/pt/odilon-redon/portrait-of-simone-fayet-in-holy-communion-1908
Her father Gustave Fayet was the owner of the Abbaye de Fontfroide, near Narbonne, for which Redon pianted decorative works, more here: http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/around-redon.html
Fayet was himself a painter, and he had a fine collection of paintings, including many works by Gauguin.

photo REDON-PORTRAIT-OF-YSEULT-FAYET_zpscdaa8a82.jpg

Yselt Favet, 1908; rather in the style of his lovely portrait of Violet Heymann from the same year (unfortunately I can't find a decent scan of it):
http://petrusplancius.livejournal.com/2940.html

This portrait too is very fine I think:
http://petrusplancius.livejournal.com/223152.html
 
4 comments | Leave a comment
 
( 4 comments — Leave a comment )
Two-Dog: ph painterbluesman on January 26th, 2013 05:29 am (UTC)
In all of these works, except for The Yellow Shawl, the subjects look very detached. Either they were fed up with sitting for him or that's just the way he depicted them.

This reminds me of the illustrations in Blackie children's books (I think Blackie was the name of the publishing company), produced in Britain in the middle of the twentieth century, or perhaps a bit earlier. The illustrations were all beautifully painted by the same person and the subjects always looked melancholy, no matter what the circs.

I looked Blackie books up on Google once, but there's precious little info.
petrusplanciuspetrusplancius on January 26th, 2013 11:42 am (UTC)
It seems to me that he doesn't really connect with his subjects as individuals (except in a few cases), but uses the composition as a whole to conjure up a sort of mental state; it's very effective, but he isn't a painter one would go to for portraits which reflected the sitter's idiosyncrasies. They end up more like contemplative figure studies, with the sitter providing a focus in the same way as those in the interiors of Vermeer or de Hooch.
karinmollberg (Mollberg is a C.M. Bellman quote): Marble Cassandra With Amber Eyeskarinmollberg on January 26th, 2013 10:48 am (UTC)
I like the portrait of her with the yellow shawl best because of the contrast inbetzeen her, as you say, thougtful face looking back at the artist and the bright colour of the outer world as represented by a garment. tThen the picture of her recovering from an illness. Think, I prefer Favet, though. Probably for a bit of the same transition thing.
petrusplanciuspetrusplancius on January 26th, 2013 11:33 am (UTC)
The yellow shawl is a good picture I think, yet he remains curiously distant from the subject (even though it is his wife). He doesn't really paint faces in any specific detail, you just have an outline of the features, and the composition as a whole has to do the work. It is significant, I think, that he so often portrays the subjects of his portraits in profile. The Domecy portraits is unusual among his portraits for the less perfunctory depiction of the facial features.
( 4 comments — Leave a comment )