Mlle. Juliette Dodu 1904

Odilon Redon made this charcoal drawing of Mlle. Juliette Dodu in 1906. Look at the way Redon coaxes form from the paper; the side of her face emerges like a whisper. There’s a softness in the rendering, the charcoal smudged and layered to create a sense of volume and light. I love the materiality of charcoal, it's so immediate. You can see how Redon uses it to build up the shadows and contours of Juliette's face. Notice the delicate lines around her eye, the way the charcoal captures the texture of her hair, and the subtle gradations of tone in her cheek. He’s so good at the in-between places, the ambiguity, the uncertainty. That one soft mark under her chin? It's barely there, but it tells you everything. Redon reminds me a little of the drawings of Seurat – both have this incredible sensitivity to light and atmosphere. But Redon is dreamier, more suggestive. It's like he's inviting us to enter into his world of imagination.