Art Institute of Chicago

Primitive Being

Odilon Redon

Date

c. 1876

Medium

Various charcoals and black chalk, with stumping, wiping, and erasing, fixed, on cream wove paper

Culture

France

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Odilon Redon himself described this drawing as representing “a primitive being contemplating the head of a giant.” During Redon’s life, new ideas of evolution provoked a fascination with other societies that were unmediated by industrialization and which Europeans viewed as “primitive” and closer to the natural world. Redon’s figures relate to these racially insensitive romanticized stereotypes, while also revealing other windows of creative thought. Although the work evokes the biblical story of David and Goliath, its mood is mysterious and reflective rather than triumphant. This is one of Redon’s celebrated black-and-white works he called “noirs” (blacks), which were strange, often disturbing images derived from the subconscious mind or dream world. In them, the artist deftly applied velvety charcoal and black chalk using a repertory of techniques—wiping, rubbing, erasing—to bring out a rich variety of tonal, chromatic, and textural effects.

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