This group of four drawings by Odilon Redon is preserved in the Van Gogh Museum in its original portfolio bearing the inscription ‘Baudelaire. Les Fleurs du Mal. Cinq dessins originaux, inédits, de Odilon Redon’ . A fifth drawing became separated from the group and is now elsewhere . Despite this title, Redon seems not to have made these drawings, which date from different periods and are made from different materials, specifically for the famous volume of poetry by Charles Baudelaire. It was their first owner, the Belgian publisher and collector Edmond Deman (1857–1918), who sold them under this header at a sale of his collection in 1903.
Redon’s early clientele consisted for the most part of writers, publishers and other literary figures. Around 1900, this new group of regular customers also often approached Redon’s oeuvre out of literary interest. In selling these early drawings, Deman was targeting this bibliophile market, which seems to be the reason why he advertised them as five original designs for Baudelaire. This also explains the suggestion made in the catalogue to insert the drawings in the luxury bibliophile editions of Les Fleurs du Mal, illustrated by the artist Carlos Schwabe (1866–1926) or by Armand Rassenfosse (1862–1934). Deman did not record his name in the provenance; instead, he called himself an ‘anonymous Paris collector’, undoubtedly with a view to making the works even more desirable to the targeted group. Redon’s loyal collector Andries Bonger saw through this false provenance, but bought the drawings anyway, by his own account in order ‘to gather them in, so you will at least know where they went’. Bonger complained about the low turnout at the sale and about the young people who paid large sums for ‘little drawings’ by the then popular Félicien Rops but otherwise had no eye for Redon’s art. In Bonger’s opinion, there were but few collectors like himself, informed intellectuals who could assess the true value of Redon’s art.
Redon, too, experienced a public auction as a vulnerable moment, when his work might suddenly end up in the wrong hands or context. He therefore thanked Bonger for ‘saving’ the sheets, and complimented him on his purchase of the ‘good’ drawings for Les Fleurs du Mal.
Portfolio in which the group of drawings was sold in 1903
However, these drawings were never used for the edition of Baudelaire’s book that Deman published in 1890. That edition contains nine completely different works by Redon’s hand, reproduced in photogravure, the process perfected by Léon Evely (1849–1937). These nine original drawings also belonged to the publisher’s collection, and he lent them to the exhibition of Les XX in 1890. It is therefore possible that Redon was thinking about these works when he congratulated Bonger on his purchase.
The question remains, then, whether Redon had Deman’s illustrated edition of Les Fleurs du Mal in mind when he handed the present drawings over to the publisher, or whether Deman conveniently linked them to this project to make them more interesting to potential customers. While Les Fleurs du Mal was in preparation, Redon possibly sent a number of drawings to Deman that did not make it into the final book, including this group. But another course of events is equally plausible, because between 1887 and 1890 the publisher prepared various other publications with frontispieces by Redon, and also bought and traded several individual drawings and prints by the artist.
The fact that Redon did not believe in the literal illustration of a text, but rather saw his drawings as a world that ran parallel to the realm of words, means that, in any case, these drawings cannot be directly linked to passages in Baudelaire’s book of poetry. Redon felt that his drawings corresponded on a higher spiritual level to the ideas and mood of the poet. Following this line of reasoning, Redon justified his decision not to produce illustrations specifically for the book, but to plunder the portfolios containing drawings he had made in the preceding decades. It is precisely their affinity to the subject matter in combination with the discrepancies between the nature of the text and the content of the drawings that intensified the suggestive quality and mystery that Redon sought.
If this was indeed the course of events, the selection of drawings that the artist chose to hand over to Deman was highly arbitrary, for they vary in terms of period, material, support, format and signature. The pensive figure and the female profile were laid down quite precisely in graphite with fine hatching and sharp contours, whereas the two female nudes and the head of a man placed in a bowl were drawn much more sketchily, with loose, exploratory – but also more expressive – lines in graphite and chalk, respectively. Yet this technical and stylistic diversity connects the group of works all the more to the set of drawings that constitute the final print series Les Fleurs du Mal. A number of authors have commented upon the unevenness, to put it mildly, of Redon’s selection for Deman.
All of these drawings do feature a dark area, applied by Redon to introduce more tone and spatiality and to add a mystical element. As is the case with the drawings that ended up in Deman’s album, the works discussed here are characterized by an emphasis on line, presumably to simplify graphic reproduction. Head of a Man Placed in a Bowl was drawn with lithographic chalk on transfer paper and thus intended for transfer to lithographic stone. Given that Deman chose a photomechanical process for his edition of Les Fleurs du Mal, Redon’s use of lithographic chalk in this particular drawing underscores the very tenuous connection that the group of works in its entirety has with the published series of photogravures.
Fleur Roos Rosa de Carvalho
2022