He could make out an arid plain... 19th-20th century

Curator: This is Odilon Redon's "He could make out an arid plain..." a lithograph held in the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: It's haunting, a landscape of stark, almost brutal simplicity, rendered in subtle shades. Curator: Redon often mined his dreams and nightmares. You can almost feel the weight of the stone and the desolation. I wonder, what sort of printing press was used to create these effects of light and shadow? Editor: Lithography allowed Redon a directness—drawing on stone, creating multiples, disseminating his visions widely. Think of it as a precursor to today's digital art. Curator: The birds give it a sense of scale, an unsettling vastness. Editor: Yes, and the way he built up tone suggests a real engagement with the physical properties of the medium. It's a testament to how he could convey such intense emotion through such humble materials. Curator: It leaves me contemplative about the beauty and terror in the spaces of our minds. Editor: It's an object lesson in how constraints—like a limited palette—can spur innovation.