Odilon Redon: Evocation of Roussel

Evocation of Roussel, Odilon Redon, c. 1912, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

I discovered Redon in a museum, and I still remember the surprise of my first encounter with his coloured works, so far removed from the dark, tormented “Blacks” that also define his reputation. This Evocation of Roussel moves me particularly for its flowers, floating freely around the figure, weightless, as if suspended in a waking dream. Redon is not painting a portrait, he is painting an atmosphere, a presence. It is that freedom, that way of making things exist beyond the laws of the real, that makes me want to share this work with you on VMuseum today.

You are standing before a bearded man with a pensive gaze. Flowers surround him, orange, white, golden. They grow nowhere. They float, free.

What the canvas tells you

Odilon Redon paints here his friend Ker-Xavier Roussel, a Nabi painter and Vuillard’s brother-in-law. The title is deliberate: not “portrait,” but evocation. The figure dissolves into a golden halo that resembles a secular aureole. The brushwork is visible, sometimes barely laid down, the bare canvas shows through. The dark garment embroidered with gold anchors the figure. But the flowers obey different laws. They orbit around Roussel like coloured planets. Look at the sunflower in the lower left, almost botanical. Then the orange corollas, blazing, almost abstract. Redon blends observation and vision in a single oil on canvas of 73 × 54 cm.

What the period tells you

Around 1912, Redon has definitively left his “Blacks” behind. He has been painting in colour for twenty years. French Symbolism is at its height. Roussel, his Nabi friend, shares with him a taste for poetic and decorative form. Together they move in the same circle, Bonnard, Vuillard, Maurice Denis. This evocation is not a commission. It is a gesture of friendship, a presence made visible through paint.
Odilon Redon (1840–1916) was born in Bordeaux. A Symbolist painter, printmaker and pastellist, he is one of the forerunners of Surrealism. The Evocation of Roussel is held at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

On view: Redon at the Getty Center

From 14 July to 18 October 2026, the Getty Center in Los Angeles is presenting Odilon Redon: Visions of Another World. Charcoals, lithographs and pastels from the Getty’s collections explore the painter’s fantastical universe, from his mythological sources to his scientific inspirations. Free admission.
Source: getty.edu/exhibitions/odilon-redon/