Buddha Walking among the Flowers 1905

Odilon Redon made this painting, Buddha Walking among the Flowers, using oil on canvas. The whole picture is steeped in these warm, earthy colors – reds, browns, and ochres – creating a dreamy, almost hallucinatory atmosphere. I can imagine Redon, brush in hand, layering these hues, trying to capture the feeling of a spiritual experience. It's like he's building up the image bit by bit, letting the paint itself suggest the forms. There's this sense of searching, of trying to visualize something beyond the everyday. Take that central figure of the Buddha, for example. He seems to emerge from the flowers, almost dissolving into the surrounding foliage. Looking at this painting, I’m reminded that artists like Redon are always in conversation with the past, even as they're forging new paths. They're picking up threads from earlier masters, reinterpreting them, and pushing them in new directions. It's a continuous cycle of influence and innovation, with each artist building on what came before.