Odilon Redon: La Voile grise (1900-05)

“When, in 1893, Redon began to use colour, the nightmarish and macabre visions that had previously predominated in the drawings he called his Noirs gave way to a brighter vision of the world.
La Voile grise is thus emblematic of Redon’s lyrical seascapes in which he depicted small stranded boats, a theme he would later return to in dozens of paintings and pastels…As indicated by the sky shot through by a rainbow of dazzling multicoloured stripes, Redon shares with Mallarmé and the Symbolist poets the idea that Art should not describe the subject itself but rather the effect the subject produces. “He knew how to suggest an ambiance without spelling it out,” notes John Rewald, “how to indicate things without defining…