Bouquet of Flowers 1900

Odilon Redon, a French painter who died in 1916, created this oil painting of a bouquet in a vase. We might initially read the work as a straightforward still life, but Redon came to maturity at a time of great social change in France. The Third Republic saw rapid industrialization and growing class divisions. Redon came to be associated with the Symbolist movement in art and literature, which rejected realism in favor of subjective experience, spirituality, and the power of dreams and imagination. The floral still life can be seen as a retreat from social concerns into the realm of individual feeling. Yet the bright colours and swirling brushstrokes suggest a deeper psychological complexity. The vase, an object of domesticity and bourgeois comfort, hints at the institutional structures that shaped art. Was Redon conscious of these social structures, and perhaps critiquing them? In archives and libraries, we find the resources to explore the social context of art. Only then can we understand the complex interplay between the individual artist, the artwork, and its cultural moment.