The Birth of Venus 1912

Odilon Redon made The Birth of Venus with pastel on paper, but it's less a birth, more a becoming. The marks here are powdery, smudged, and the color palette is restrained, all moody blues and browns. You can tell Redon wasn't trying to hide the process. It's all about the gesture, the touch of the hand. Look closely at Venus's arm reaching up. It's not a perfect line, but a series of little strokes, tentative, feeling its way up towards the sky. In a way, this encapsulates the whole piece: a figure emerging from the murky depths, not fully formed, but in the process of becoming. The earth tones in the lower section become increasingly airy, like the painting, like Venus herself, is in the middle of a deep breath. Redon's Symbolist contemporary, Gustav Moreau, explored similar mythical themes, but with a hard, gem-like surface. In comparison Redon's work is more atmospheric and open-ended. There's no right answer here, just a sense of ongoing exploration.