Ageing is, quite simply, a law of nature, and this means that not one of the nineteenth-century works in the collection of the Van Gogh Museum still looks the same as it did when the artist signed it, even if it has been kept under optimal conditions. Some works, however, have undergone such fundamental changes that the artist’s intentions are difficult to discern. This is true to a great extent of some fifty flower still lifes that Odilon Redon drew around 1905 in pastel on blue-grey wove paper, most of them measuring 62 × 49 cm. Three of these works are in the collection of the Van Gogh Museum. Just as he did when depicting flower still lifes in oil paint, Redon worked from real bouquets of flowers that his wife, Camille, picked and arranged in various vases and jugs during their summers in Saint-Georges-de-Didonne. Working with vivid pastel colours on large sheets with ample margins while giving no specific spatial indications, the artist’s primary concern was not the portrayal of reality; instead, the red of the geraniums or the yellow of the sunflowers now assumed a more decorative role in relation to the surrounding sea of blue-grey paper. To accentuate the petals and sprigs, the artist added contours and fine lines in pencil and black chalk.
A number of critics discussed Redon’s flower still lifes in musical terms, with each colour and each line functioning like a note in yet another new symphony. If we leaf through the oeuvre catalogue and view these ‘symphonies’ in their entirety, it becomes clear that Redon’s manner of working had a repetitive and even formulaic aspect. Around 1905, Redon was embroiled in a lengthy court case involving the family estate of Peyrelebade, and he was urgently in need of money. Churning out flower still lifes, whether in paint or pastel, was a lucrative source of income, because his supply could barely meet the demand from old and new clients alike. Among them was his loyal customer Andries Bonger, who acquired the pastel Pansies for 200 francs in 1905 .
Odilon Redon, Pansies, c. 1905. Pastel and black chalk on blue-grey wove paper, discoloured to brown, 62.3 × 48.5 cm. Private collection
Bonger praised the ‘great intensity’ of this particular still life, by which he must have been referring to the play of colour between the deep cobalt blue in the violets and vase against the blue-grey background. The fixative – its particles can be discerned across the sheet, when viewed from close up – has caused considerable darkening of the whole, but even the paper and the pastel itself are discoloured. Regrettably, the blue-grey background has discoloured to brown to such an extent that the original effect has been destroyed. Because Redon used the same kind of paper for the entire group of flower still lifes, each pastel, has undergone the same discoloration. It took only a few years for this process to set in, as revealed by a letter Redon wrote to the collector Gabriel Frizeau (1870–1938), in which he admitted to using mediocre paper for a pastel in Frizeau’s collection and acknowledged that ‘the colour of this paper having changed with time has disrupted the harmony’.
The drastic fading can indeed be blamed on the mediocre, industrially produced paper, which contains large quantities of wood pulp and therefore discolours very quickly when exposed to light. It is telling that all of the pastels have undergone nearly uniform discoloration. Only one work from the above-mentioned group is several stages behind in discoloration, and therefore still preserves something of its original appearance . A more ambitious flower still life made on paper of higher quality also gives an indication of what these works once looked like .
A reconstruction of Flowers, Fancy Stoneware Vase (cat. 30), made especially for this entry, gives a slightly clearer picture of the colourful and decorative effect Redon had in mind when he made these works and . Seen against the blue-grey paper, the subtle accents on the vase and the blue-green of the insect suddenly pop out again. The reconstruction also includes the original frame, which Redon considered an integral part of the artwork. Its golden radiance has been restored. Redon wrote the following about Bonger’s Pansies: ‘For the blue vase with the pansies (pastel), I left a surface of grey paper that frames it very naturally, finished with a very simple beading.’ These relatively inexpensive frames, made of wood profiles and decorated with composite materials, were given a thin layer of gilt bronze, which over the years has oxidized to a greyer hue.
Bonger was so ‘infinitely’ fond of his flower pastels that he acquired two more in the following months, and the artist even gave one to Bonger’s wife, in thanks for the couple’s purchase of a large group of works. Redon saw possibilities in this – evidently new – manifestation of the flower still life, for he asked Bonger if he could keep the works for a little while before sending them to Amsterdam, in order to show them to friends and to exhibit them at Galeries Durand-Ruel, as a means of attracting new customers.
Reconstruction of the paper colour and frame of cat. 30, fabricated by conservator Nico Lingbeek in September 2021 for the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Tellingly, it was precisely these works that the Paris correspondent of the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant singled out in his review of the exhibition held at Kunstzaal Reckers in 1907. He wrote: ‘Of magnificently pure, strong colour are also the pastels of vases of flowers; on the completely uniform grey background, without line or colour perspective, they actually look wholly decorative, like a play of colour that is sometimes fiery deep, then again delicate and moving.’ Bonger translated the review into French for his friend Redon, but dismissed the assessment as that of an uninitiated Dutchman, who conveniently ignored Redon’s earlier ‘dreams’ and concentrated on the more easily digestible flower still lifes. However, Redon replied that he did not object to people dwelling on his most recent works, and even added that he could understand their preference: ‘Surely it’s no bad thing when people share a father’s weakness for his last-born?’
Fleur Roos Rosa de Carvalho
2022