Upon Awakening I Saw the Goddess of the Intelligible with Her Severe and Hard Profile 1885

Here, we see a lithograph by Odilon Redon titled "Upon Awakening I Saw the Goddess of the Intelligible with Her Severe and Hard Profile." The artwork presents a striking profile of a woman, rendered in stark blacks and whites. The texture is achieved through a deliberate arrangement of lines, lending a soft, almost dreamy quality to the goddess's features. Redon’s formal choices invite interpretation. The goddess's severe profile, set against the ethereal background, creates a tension between clarity and ambiguity. The use of lithography enables Redon to play with light and shadow, giving the figure both definition and an air of mystery. This interplay can be viewed through the lens of semiotics, where the contrast between light and dark symbolizes the dichotomy between knowledge and the unknown. Note the title—it infers a moment of revelation. The goddess is ‘intelligible,’ and she appears in a dream. Redon’s work challenges us to question fixed meanings and explore the fluid boundaries between the visible and the invisible.