Cleveland Museum of Art

Vase of Flowers

Date

c. 1905

Medium

oil on fabric

Culture

France, late 19th-early 20th Century

Department

Modern European Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Rapturous flower still lifes like this dominated the last decade and a half of Odilon Redon’s career and provided his greatest commercial success. His interest in plants and flowers began in his youth; child of wine producers, he grew up northwest of Bordeaux and was sensitive to fluctuations in weather, light, and temperature affecting the grape harvest. When he was 20, Redon met Armond Clavaud, a botanist and draftsman who illustrated his own compendium of flowers of the Bordeaux region. Clavaud’s meticulously rendered drawings sparked the young Redon’s imagination and helped to instill his desire to paint “nature, as seen in a dream.” Redon returned to the subject of flowers many times throughout his career. His interest in plants may have been inspired by his friend and mentor Armand Clavaud, a botanist and illustrator who lived in Redon's hometown of Bordeaux.

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