In the mind's eye: New perspectives on frontispieces by Odilon Redon.
Item
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Title
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In the mind's eye: New perspectives on frontispieces by Odilon Redon.
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Identifier
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AAI9912607
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identifier
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9912607
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Creator
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Miller, Asher Ethan.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Diane Kelder
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Date
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1998
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Art History | Biography
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Abstract
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Odilon Redon's frontispieces are isolated as a genre within his lithographic oeuvre for the first time. They are subject to formal analysis with particular attention to their role within self-initiated and collaborative publishing projects, and they are seen as central to the linked developments of his public persona and the dissemination of his images. A chronological framework allows for a detailed account of the circumstances surrounding their execution and for a clear picture of changes in Redon's milieu in the 1880s and -90s, which included Huysmans, Mallarme, and Verhaeren.;Redon was a literary-pictorial artist, the breadth of whose sources can be best understood when his published projects are considered from the point of view of the frontispieces. Baudelaire's prose poems are thus examined not only in terms of their formal content, but for the context in which they initially appeared, that is, in the popular press. Similarly, the prints of Rodolphe Bresdin, Redon's most important mentor, are examined not only for their formal content, but in the context of Bresdin's inability to make the essential step from printmaker to successful published printmaker.;Redon mythologized these precursors, and their influence is revealed symbolically in his many depictions of Faust and St. Anthony, particularly in the three portfolios of lithographs (1888, 1889, 1896) devoted to Flaubert's novel La Tentation de saint Antoine (1874). These portfolios are considered as landmarks of the series of albums he issued in the twenty years inaugurated by the appearance of Dans le reve in 1879. Redon's collaborations with Belgian symbolist authors, particularly under the aegis of the innovative Brussels publisher Edmond Deman, are considered in terms of their mutual literary-pictorial interests, which bore fruit in numerous finely printed editions that stand as monuments in the early history of the artist's book.;Considered together as a category unto themselves for the first time, the specialized function of the frontispieces reveals a further stage in Redon's creative process, which consisted of using his drawings as bases for prints, by taking into account as well the commercial context into which his images would be disseminated.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
