Ophelia 

Curator: Looking at Odilon Redon's "Ophelia", it strikes me as ethereal and delicate. There’s a quietness, almost a melancholic serenity to the way the subject is portrayed. Editor: Absolutely. You can almost feel the weight of the paper with that thin wash of watercolor allowing light to penetrate and transform it. The visible weave and its coarse texture contradict this dreamlike and spectral visual, giving the impression of something more substantial. Curator: That is such an interesting juxtaposition of visual softness with palpable objecthood. It makes me think of the Ophelia myth, and of course, Shakespeare’s rendition. The way she, as a female character, is given no space to truly author her life… Editor: Exactly. Think about the conditions for painting in this era—pigment availability, the commercial aspect of brushes. Everything would have contributed to the overall aesthetic in terms of accessibility. But look how those black smudges become botanical, floating next to her portrait like thought bubbles from a tortured character. Curator: Right, and it invites us to think critically about whose suffering is aestheticized for an audience, and at what cost. This portrait certainly evokes Ophelia's tragic ending, a young woman driven to madness and ultimately death because of the social structures oppressing her. Editor: You are seeing them as botanical, but to me, those floating masses resemble more debris and oil slicks; their very blackness seems polluting to the dreamy wash in which she floats. One needs both paper and pigment. So while on the one hand it is about myth and historical context, this painting exists as an object—an accumulation of available materials produced at a very specific time. Curator: Precisely, that tension between materiality and the symbolic is at the heart of so much powerful art. It pushes us to reconcile with difficult histories of representation. Editor: So, although seemingly melancholic and dreamy, I also see a quiet testament to the labour and materials present in this work. Curator: It makes you wonder about Redon's process. Did he actively think through these issues, or was his artwork instead reflective of the time it was made in? Editor: Whether it was intentional or not, that convergence is certainly why Redon continues to fascinate today.