Melancholy (c. 1868): Art, History and Details

Melancholy (c. 1868) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Odilon Redon grew up near the massive Pyrénées mountains in southern France and their image recurred throughout his work. In a series of drawings made during the 1870s, Redon used the craggy surface and infinite reach of his native landscape to evoke a sense of solitude and isolation. The woman seen here, for example, leans forward and casts her eyes downward as if in resignation.

Object facts

• Title: Melancholy
• Date: c. 1868
• Creator attribution: Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: graphite on beige wove paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 32.1 x 22 cm (12 5/8 x 8 11/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1927.299

A detail from the museum

Redon incorporated fantastical details into his mountainous landscape, including a small creature seen faintly directly above the woman and a profile that vaguely appears in the shadows next to her.

Collection credit

Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland

Further reading listed by the museum

• Odilon Redon (1840–1916): Pastels and Drawings. Exh. cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1951.
• Rewald, John. "Quelques notes et documents sur Odilon Redon." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 48 (November 1956): 81-124.
• Wildenstein, Alec. Odilon Redon, catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint et dessiné. Paris: Wildenstein Institute, 1992.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.