Towards the close of 1891, Odilon Redon wrote to express thanks to André Mellerio for his friendship, his connoisseurship and the support of his critical energies:
My dear Mellerio, I got home yesterday, quite delighted by my visit and seeing, along with that delicious Renoir and the Gauguin, your collection of lithographs. I saw it quite differently than I would have at my place. It was also the first time that appeared to me in well-presented form, this series of essays which you call ‘oeuvre’. … And, thinking back on the various judgements made about my work, I re-read Destrée’s descriptions, Huysmans’s appreciations, and also that benevolent portrait you put in L’Art dans les deux mondes – defunct today, but so what – in which you gave vent to your thoughts. So far as one can be both judge and defendant, I placed your critique among the well-turned, the best, in any case among those which gave me pleasure. It occurs to me that I have not thanked you enough for sending it to me down there, far away in my lair, away too from the effect my work has on other men. It was sad timing as well. But today I thank you warmly, and am tenderly touched by the care you’ve taken to collect my work, with your knowing eye for a good print. And it takes courage too – how rare it is – to stand before so many, before everyone, in defence of one forgotten.1 Redon to André Mellerio, 18 November 1891. Lettres d’Odilon Redon 1878–1916, G. van Oest, Paris & Bruxelles 1923, pp. 16–17. It is intriguing that even the most basic facts of Mellerio’s life, such as just what he did for a living, remain unknown. He is notable for his absence from the standard encyclopaedic introductions to the kaleidoscopic social whirl of fin-de-siècle Paris: Baldick’s Life of Huysmans, Mondor’s Vie de Mallarmé and the multi-volume Mallarmé correspondence. In 1978 Phillip Dennis Cate, organising an exhibition around Mallarmé’s publication of 1898 La Lithographie Originate en Couleurs, lamented that ‘little is known of André Mellerio’s early years.’ See Phillip Dennis Cate and Sinclair Hamilton Hitchings, The Colour Revolution. Colour Lithography in France 1890–1900, Peregrine Smith, Santa Barbara & Salt Lake City, 1978, p. 73. It is hoped that from the collation of Mellerio data presented here, some picture of this major but forgotten character will begin to emerge.*
*Mon cher Mellerio,
Je suis revenu, hier, fori content de la visite où je vis, avec ce délicieux Renoir et le Gauguin, votre collection de lithographies. Je la vis avec des yeux autres que chez moi. C’était aussi la prèmiere fois que m’apparaissait, bien présentée, cette suite d’essais, à laquelle vous avez donné le titre d’oeuvre! …Et, songeant aux jugements divers formulés sur ces travaux, j’ai relu les descriptons de Destrée, les appréciations de Huysmans, et aussi ce bienveillant portrait que vous avez mis en ‘l’Art dans les deux mondes’ – aujourd ‘hui mort, mais qu’importe – en y plaçant votre pensée. Autant qu’on peut être juge quoique partie je vous ai mis parmi les bien, parmi les bons, en tous cas parmi ceux qui me firent plaisir. J’ai conscience de ne pas vous avoir assez bien fait part de mes remercîments pour cet envoi que vous me fîtes, là-bas, quand j’étais loin, en ma retraite, loin aussi par la pensée des rapports que mes travaux ont avec les autres hommes. L’heure était triste aussi. Mais jele fats aujourd’hui vivement, étant touché tendrement du soin que vous avez mis à me collectionner avec le bon goût de la bonne épreuve. Puis il y a du courage, aussi, il est rare, à montrer envers beaucoup, envers tous, la défence de I’oublié.
Critic, collector and art-loving dilettante, André Mellerio remains a shadowy character. Redon’s letter, however, defines his nature with an evocative list of attributes: Mellerio possesses a considerable collection of contemporary art with a good selection of Redon’s own lithographs, he has a fine eye for the rare or telling pull of a print, his literary efforts rival those of the well-known men of letters Jules Destrée and Joris-Karl Huysmans, and he is stalwart in defending Redon’s aesthetic in the face of public hostility or indifference. Redon’s comments come from the beginning of a friendship between artist and critic that spanned almost three decades – a friendship that encircles and engenders Mellerio’s relationship to the National Gallery of Victoria’s Pegasus (fig. 1), and enhances modern appreciation of it.2 Pegasus, mixed media on card, 47.4 x 37.2 cm; National Gallery of Victoria, Felton Bequest 1951, Inv. no. 2361/4. The Pegasus was first exhibited publicly in 1926, and then dated 1900; Odilon Redon. Exposition Retrospective de Son Oeuvre, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Palais du Louvre, Paris, mars 1926, no. 63. The work was surely purchased by Mellerio before the artist’s death in 1916. I am grateful to Sonia Dean and John Payne for their assistance in examining the Pegasus. In this article I explore the relationship between Odilon Redon and André Mellerio which surrounded Mellerio’s possession of the Pegasus, examine the development of the Pegasus theme in Redon’s oeuvre, and propose its iconographical source in the artist’s study of Mantegna.
Executed around 1900, the Pegasus, with its pleasing exploration of varied red tonalities, exemplifies Redon’s abandonment of his earlier preference for the monochromatic effects of charcoal and lithographic crayon. Although he produced occasional oils throughout his career, Redon concentrated on mastering the subtleties of black and white in a vast array of etchings, lithographs and charcoal drawings produced between 1860 and 1895. From the mid 1890s onwards, for reasons not yet fully explained, but which doubtless included increased saleability, he turned first to pastel and later oil in a chromatic shift that recharged his flagging artistic sensibilities. The transition was apparently an easy one. In 1896, Redon viewed pastel as ‘more entertaining work than the lithographic crayon and, my oath, more productive too’, while by the following year ‘pastel, as a matter of fact, sustains me, materially and morally; it makes me young again, I turn it out without tiring’.3 ‘ouvrage plus amusant que le crayon lithographique et, ma foi, plus fructueux aussi…le pastel, en effet, me soutient, matériellement et moralement; il me rajeunit, je le produis sans fatigue.’ Redon to André Bonger, 28 April 1896 and 29 May 1897; unpublished letters, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam. I am grateful to Dr J. W. Niemeijer, Director of the Rijksprentenkabinet, for permission to study Redon’s unpublished correspondence with André Bonger. Emerging as a fully-fledged colourist after this period of enthusiastic ‘apprenticeship’, Redon embarked after 1900 on an ambitious cycle of coloured works in oil, pastel, distemper and watercolour. Motifs and compositions treated decades earlier in charcoal or lithography were reworked and rejuvenated in an ever-changing succession of shifts of palette. In this context, Pegasus should be paired with Le Liseur, another mixed media composition of c. 1900 equally rendered in predominantly red hues.4 Le Liseur or Le Graveur, oil and pastel on paper, 47.0 x 47.0 cm; Musée du Petit Palais, Paris, Inv. 1221. In conception both works date back to charcoal drawings executed in the 1880s, now revitalised by a delicate visual conceit in which the monochromatic character of the earlier drawings is recast as a colouristic exercise.
The depth of gratitude felt by Redon for his critics should not be underestimated. On Mellerio’s testimony, he first encountered the artist in 1888, a year rendered tragic for Redon by the drowning before his eyes of his close friend and staunch literary ally, Emile Hennequin.5 André Mellerio, Odilon Redon, Société Pour l’Etude de la Gravure Française, Paris, 1913, p. 29. Hennequin drowned at Samois on 13 July 1888, the very day he arrived for a holiday with Odilon and Camille Redon. Redon’s horror and despair are captured by Huysmans in a letter to the German collector Arij Prins of 19 July 1888: ‘Pour continuer à écrire ainsi à bâtons rompus – je vous apprends que le malheureux Hennequin qui était allé passer les fêtes du 14 juillet, à Samois, chez Redon, s’est noyé. Les Redon sont comme fous; j’ai reçu une lettre de Redon, effrayée, à la suite de cet évènement.’ J.-K. Huysmans, Lettres Inédites à Arij Prins 1885–1907, publiées et annotées par Louis Gillet, Librairie Droz, Genève, 1977, p. 131. Mellerio later changed the date of his first meeting with Redon to post-January 1889. Given that, on Redon’s testimony, the text of Mellerio’s 1913 opus was completed in first draft by 1901 (see below), I am inclined to accept the 1888 version. For the latter dating see André Mellerio, Odilon Redon. Peintre, Dessinateur et Graveur, H. Floury, Paris, 1923, p. 57. This fundamental source will be referred to as Mellerio, 1923, in later footnotes. The late 1880s were also for Redon a period of serious financial hardship. In 1885, Huysmans described him as living ‘as well-off as badly, more badly than well-off’; and in 1886 he and his wife were ‘right now in serious debt’.6 ‘tant bien que mal, plus mal que bien… actuellement dans une serieuse gêne.’ Huysmans to Jules Destrée, 17 October 1885 and 3 February 1886. J.-K. Huysmans, Lettres Inédites a Jules Destrée, introduction et notes de Gustave Vanwelkenhuyzen, Librairie Droz, Genève, 1967, pp. 64, 71–72. For the forty-eight year-old Redon the arrival of Mellerio, more than twenty years his junior, a gifted young man with artistic sensibility and literary aspirations, must have been welcome. The financial role Mellerio assumed as collector and patron, doubtless also played a part in the swift burgeoning of their friendship.7 Mellerio himself later noted the strategic timing of the friendship: C’est peu de temps après que nous eûmes fait la connaissance, bientôt affectueusement intime, de Redon, et lorsque luisaient pour lui quelques légitimes espérances, que commença la période sans doute la plus douleureuse de sa vie. Elle devait durer plusieurs années.’ Mellerio 1923, p. 60.
Little evidence survives of the daily contact between them and Mellerio’s letters to the artist have unfortunately not been preserved. But his constant avowals of extreme intimacy with Redon are supported by a wealth of corroborative circumstantial evidence. The critic recalled the Redon household in terms of ‘intimate and lively get-togethers where over a cup of tea we debated, at length, fascinating artistic questions’.8 ‘d’intimes et cordiales réunions où, tout en prenant une tasse de thé, on agitait, en de longues causeries, d’intéressantes questions d’art.’ Mellerio, 1923, p. 65. There he mingled with writers Huysmans and Mallarmé, painters Schuffenecker and Gauguin, and fellow patrons Maurice Fabre, Antoine de la Rochefoucauld and René Philipon. Later he would encounter Sérusier, Denis, Bonnard and Vuillard on visits to Redon. Redon’s foyer clearly became a centre of literary and artistic encounters for the younger man, drawing him back repeatedly for conversation and perusals of Redon’s folios.9 For the private viewings of Redon’s drawings see Huysmans’s letter to Jules Destrée of 17 October 1885: ‘C’est un désarmé par les temps qui courent – II a dans son atelier d’extraordinaires dessins, infiniment superieurs à ceux de ses albums. II faut avoir vu ça pour se figurer jusqu’ou peut aller l’art du rêve. / Un soir, avec Mallarmé, en feuilletant ses cartons, nous demeurâmes béants devant d’etranges primitifs qu’il renouvelait, en plein cauchemar.’ Huysmans, Lettres à Destrée, pp. 64–9. The two also attended exhibitions and soirées together, and engaged in severe post-mortems with like ‘intimes‘. The devastating dissections of Huysmans, conducted before Redon’s fireside, were particularly notorious.10 Redon’s account of a Huysmanic humiliation session, dictated to Ary Leblond, survives: ‘Huysmans était un causeur exquis! toutefois d’une nuance un peu autre que Mallarmé. Rien, par exemple, n’avait pour nous de saveur plus comique que de l’entendre nous dire ses comptes rendus des ‘Salon’. II venait, en effet, régulièrement les ‘essayer’ sur nous, en les parlant, avant de les mettre noir sur papier blanc pour le journal οù il tenait la rubrique de la critique d’Art. Ah! quelque chrétien qu’il se dit, il avait vite oublié, notre homme, tout élément de charité ou pitié quand il s’agis-sait de flageller la “mauvaise peinture!” Car il avait un oeil, autant que sa plume, cruel.’ See ‘Huysmans, mon grand frère par Odilon Redon. Propos recueillis par Ary Leblond’, Arts, 7–13 novembre 1956, p. 9.
The principal evidence of the intensity of their friendship survives in the critic’s writings. Though not initially as influential as the critiques of Destrée or Huysmans, Mellerio’s publications nonetheless played a crucial part in the spread of Redon’s reputation. In 1891 he went into print with an encomium to Redon that appeared in the Parisian weekly L’Art Dans les Deux Mondes. Redon is summoned up in his tiny room-cum-studio in the rue d’Assas, juggling a baby in one hand and a lithographic crayon in the other. This, Mellerio declares, is the man who has ‘rénové la lithographic’, a man both ‘artiste’ and ‘penseur’, who reserves his energy and relaxes his obsessive introspection for art alone:
Only occasionally does he light up with a restrained flame, hardly raising the level of his voice, when he speaks of a master-work or a beautiful proof on wonderful chine – not the commercial kind but the true chine, almost unobtainable.*
*Parfois seulement une flame contenue I’anime, n’augmentant qu’à peine la vibration de sa voix, quand il parle d’une oeuvre de maître ou de ‘la belle épreuve’ sur chine mirifique, pas celui du commerce, le vrai, presque introuvable.
Redon’s outward reticence is matched, however, by the inner turbulence of a brain which seeks to probe the motivating forces of the universe. To his technical mastery and innovatory prowess, Redon adds a plastic embodiment of thought which exceeds the reproduction of nature and lends his art a ‘moral life’. Mere mimesis is superseded in this new intellectualising process:
Human expression in its primitive gleaming as in its supreme intensity, hard or sweet, brutish or intellectual, suffering or bad, angelic or perverse, occasionally the whole lot together – enigma! This is the goal Redon strives for, casting along the way, in a burst towards the beyond, strange figures of pure dream … This man has felt the wind of the upper spheres blow over him. From reality he extracts a superhuman sensation.11 André Mellerio, ‘Les Artistes à L’Atelier. Odilon Redon’, L’Art Dans les Deux Mondes, 4 juillet 1891, p. 79.*
Mellerio’s article reflects both his intimacy with the Redon household, and his intense conversations with the artist on aesthetic matters. While his elegantly enmeshed verbosity may be cloying to the modern reader, Mellerio clearly pleased Redon with his effusive panegyric. He would hardly have sought to publish an analysis contrary to Redon’s artistic intentions, which lends singular credence to his critique. We can appreciate Redon’s gratitude for a forum in which to offer justification for his hermetic and potentially alienating oeuvre at a time when hostile critics still branded his lithographs the product of alcoholism or insanity, ‘…these “contraptions”, which are the result of madness’.12 ‘…les “machines” d’Odilon Redon, qui sont le résultat de la démence’. L., ‘Vile Exposition Annuelle des XX’, Le Journal des Artistes, 20 février 1890.
Perhaps bearing in mind the success of Mellerio’s prose as a propagandistic vehicle, and certainly following the further deepening of their friendship, Redon invited the critic to write a preface for his retrospective exhibition at the Galeries Durand-Ruel in 1894. Since 1884 Redon had regularly exhibited anywhere between two and twenty works at annual group shows in Paris and Bruxelles, but the 1894 retrospective was his first major manifestation not of arrival, but survival in the contemporary scene. One hundred and twenty-four charcoals, pastels, oils and lithographs were unveiled to an astonished Paris in a comprehensive exhibition which Redon consciously organised as a survey of his aims and achievements. His assignment of the preface to Mellerio was no small honour, and a significant expression of confidence and trust.
*L’expression humaine en sa lueur primitive comme en sa suprême intensité, dure ou douce, brute ou intellectuelle, souffrante ou mauvaise, angélique ou perverse, parfois tout cela ensemble, énigmatique! C’est le but où tend Redon, semant en route, dans un élan vers I’au-delà, d’étranges figures de pur rêve… Cet homme a senti passer sur lui le vent des sphères supérieurs. Du réel il engage une impression surhumaine.
In his introduction Mellerio eschewed conventional apologia and boldly declared an unabashed partiality:
Odilon Redon holds a special place in the contemporary art scene. The first feeling aroused by his work is astonishment mingled with vague fear and admiration. We are surprised by such an unusual conception, snatching us up and taking us far away from our everyday thoughts … We find in Redon what so few other works give – a frisson of the beyond.13 André Mellerio, ‘Odilon Redon’, in Exposition Odilon Redon, Galeries Durand-Ruel, Paris, mars–avril 1894, pp. 3–4.*
In a masterly encapsulation of the artist’s methods and motivations, Mellerio laid stress on Redon’s role as ‘penseur’ relating his rediscovery of ‘values’ and intense chiaroscuro in lithography to a plastic reconciliation of ‘éducation scientifique’ with ‘aspiration spiritualiste’. In his conclusion, perhaps paraphrasing statements urged on him by the artist, he underlined Redon’s profound respect for artistic tradition, noting the influence drawn from his study of Albrecht Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt.
Redon’s choice of Mellerio was a happy one. The Durand-Ruel showing was well attended and aroused considerable response, provoking literally dozens of reviews. Mellerio’s introduction was widely read and cited by critics either in agreement or dispute with its contentions. Redon habitually gathered his media exposure into bound scrapbooks, even seeking translations of foreign critiques, and must have been impressed with the interest aroused by Mellerio’s short but concise exegesis.14 I include here a sampling of the responses to Mellerio’s introduction.Les inombrables fumistes par qui l’art est envahi ont inventé, pour atteindre plus vite à la gloire, les petites expositions et les préfaces de catalogue. II est question de créer le Montreur. Quand on entrera dans une salle pour y voir des tableaux modernes, on sera happé par un monsieur qui s’efforcera de vous retenir devant les oeuvres, de vous les faire comprendre – et même acheter. / Le besoin du montreur se fait irrésistiblement sentir devant les dessins de M. Odilon Redon, car le catalogue et sa préface ne font qu’augmenter l’incompréhensibilité de l’oeuvre. Jean-E. Schmitt, ‘Exposition Odilon Redon’, Le Siècle, samedi 31 mars 1894. Ainsi s’exprime M. André Mellerio, préfacier du catalogue de l’exposition Odilon Redon (galerie Durand-Ruel). / Certes, à parcourir les deux salles de la galerie, on a souvent l’impression de Rembrandt, de Dürer, de Goya et du Vinci. Marc Croisilles, ‘[Odilon Redon], L’Oeuvre d’Art, 25 Avril 1894, p. 21. M. Mellerio, qui écrit une préface pour le catalogue de la présente exposition, n’hésite pas à établir une filiation entre M. Odilon Redon, Dürer, Vinci et… Rembrandt! /Le rapprochement est aussi flatteur que téméraire, car il met en parallèle trois artistes dont le perpétuel souci fut la recherche de la forme, et un quatrième qui professe pour elle un écrasant dédain. Gérard de Beauregard, ‘Exposition de M. Odilon Redon (Durand-Ruel)’, La Patrie, lundi 2 avril 1894. Study of the contemporary criticism of Redon is still very much in its infancy. The fundamental text alas, still remains Mellerio’s 1913 selection of extracts – Mellerio, Odilon Redon, 1913, pp. 130–49. Mellerio indicated that his extracts were drawn from two scrapbooks loaned to him by Redon, covering the period 1861–97. The present whereabouts of these scrap-books of clippings is uncertain; and they remain, unfortunately, unpublished. Mellerio’s transcriptions are marred by incorrect dates, missing identifications of authors and missing titles of journals; and his choice of extracts is often misleading.
*Odilon Redon occupe dans I’Art contemporain une place à part. Le premier sentiment qu ‘inspire son oeuvre, est un étonnement mêlé de vague effroi et d’admiration. On est surpris devant une conception si différente de l’ordinaire, nous saisissant brusquement et nous jetant bien loin de I’ordre d’idées où nous sommes habitués de vivre journellement… C’est que nous trouvons en lui, ce que si peu d’oeuvres nous donnent, le frisson d’un au-delà.
† Comment définirons-nous le Mouvement Idéaliste?
La tendance d’artistes cherchant à échapper à la contingency par l’inspiration et le mode d’expression. En d’autres termes – tandis que’le réaliste’ prend pour but final de reproduire la nature dans la sensation directe qu’elle fait éprouver – l’idéaliste’ ne veut y voir que le point de départ éliogné de son oeuvre. Tout réside pour lui dans la transformation cérébrate, entièrement subjective, que lui fait subir notre esprit. Il ne s’agit plus de sensation, c’est-à-dire de la chose perçue indépendamment de la volonté, mais de ‘l’idée’ que nous en dégageons, par concept que l’artiste cherchera à exprimer uniquement, sans se préoccuper des exactes objectivités qui en ont été la cause.
The Durand-Ruel retrospective was the first of a number of successful combinations of Mellerio’s texts and Redon’s images. Two years later the young critic produced his influential, synthetic analysis of the artistic moves away from the mimetic fidelity to nature of Realism or Impressionism, Le Mouvement Idéaliste en Peinture. Pushing further forward ideas on the cerebral in art broached in his preface for Redon’s show, Mellerio attempted to organise the diverse exploratory tendencies of the art movements of his day within an outspoken manifesto of ‘otherness’. Symbolists, Chromo-Luminarists, Neo-Impressionists, Synthetists, and Mystics were viewed as specific by-products of a general, unifying trend:
How are we to define the Idealist Movement? A tendency for artists to escape uncertainty by inspiration and a particular means of expression. In other words, whereas the realist takes for his final goal the reproduction of the direct sensation of nature, the idealist only sees in this a point of departure – far from the finished work. For him, everything rests in cerebral transformation – an entirely subjective process, imposed by the mind. It is no longer a question of sensation – that is, a thing perceived independently of the will – but of the idea that we take from nature; as a concept the artist will try to express in a unique fashion, without worrying about the objective exactitudes which caused it.15 André Mellerio, Le Mouvement Idéaliste en Peinture, H. Floury, Paris, 1896, p. 9.†
In their search for the ‘ideal’ art form, artists turned to the Italian quattrocento, Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, the Assyrians and the Japanese – a hodgepodge of supposed fellow spirits from ages past. Mellerio placed Redon among the initiators of this rediscovery of the ‘true values’ of art. One of the ‘artistes dont se réclame le mouvement idéaliste‘, Redon emerges triumphant over the base materialism of the outmoded Impressionist aesthetic. The prominence given to Redon is clear, and augmented by the allotment of the frontispiece to his hand (fig. 2).16 Le Mouvement Idéaliste en Peinture. Frontispice, 1896, lithograph, Μ 159, 9.0 x 8.0 cm; The Art Institute of Chicago, E.H. Stickney Fund. This lithograph has twice been mistakenly reproduced upside-down. See Alfred Werner, The Graphic Works of Odilon Redon, Dover, New York, 1969, pl. 134; and the reprint edn of Mellerio’s 1913 catalogue, Da Capo Press, New York, 1968, pl. 159. In both instances the composition loses the impact of its original intention. Pulled in an edition of 350 for insertion in Mellerio’s volume, as well as a second edition for private circulation, this lithograph enabled Mellerio to reciprocate the favour shown to him by Redon in requesting the 1894 Durand-Ruel preface. Redon’s lithograph depicts an ascetic, contemplative figure surmounted by a strangling, clawing beast, an image of the artist as prey to his own thoughts perfectly in accord with both Redon’s and Mellerio’s stress on the importance of ‘idée‘ or ‘pensée‘ as the vitalising factor in art.
The two friends collaborated again in 1898 for the February edition of L’Estampe et I’Affiche, a journal which Mellerio himself edited. Mellerio’s study, devoted to Redon’s use of family portraits as springboards for developing his ideal visages, was intended to be accompanied by a lithograph depicting the artist’s son. After experimenting with two different versions, Redon rejected this composition, though distributing it privately among friends.17 Arï, 1898, lithograph, Μ 170, 20.8 x 12.5 cm. There exist two unpublished copies of this lithograph which are of considerable interest. A trial proof before letters of the first state in Chicago bears the annotations of the printer Navier: ‘Monsieur Redon, j’ai tiré cette épreuve un peu loured – pour que vous voyez bien le travail qu’est sur la pierre. Vous pouvez grattez et en s’ajouter à votre aise. Recevez Monsieur mes sincères salutations, P. Navier.’ (The Art Institute of Chicago, E. H. Stickney Fund, Inv. no. 20.1826). Redon was later to add a title, date and monogram in the lower centre of the plate; and, in the second state, alter his monogrammed signature to one in cursive script, and insert a profile sketch of Arï at upper left. Evidence of the circulation of this ‘unsatisfactory’ lithograph is provided by a pull of the first state in sanguine ink in New York, bearing a red pencil dedication at lower left: ‘offer! à M. De Bois / affectueusement / Odilon Redon’. (Museum of Modern Art, New York; Louise R. Smith Fund, 73.57). No doubt Mellerio received his own copy, as may be inferred from the enthusiastic response in his article: ‘the lithograph after his son Ari that Redon made for a few friends – that fine and simple head of a child, a touch dreamy’.18 ‘la lithographie qu’Odilon Redon a faite pour quelques amis, d’après son fils Ary, cette tête d’enfant, très fine et ingênue, un peu rêveuse.’André Mellerio, ‘La Femme et l’Enfant dans l’Oeuvre d’Odilon Redon’, L’Estampe et l’Affiche, 15 février 1898, p. 35. Abandoning the family portrait, Redon turned instead to another great love, and rendered in the most simple graphic terms a motif derived from Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper at Milan (fig. 4). His Le Sommeil (fig. 3), which appeared as a gift print alongside Mellerio’s L’Estampe et I’Affiche article, reproduces, in reverse due to the lithographic process, the elegant loll to one side of the ‘sleeping’ St John’s head, along with his lowered eyes and clean, regular features.19 Le Sommeil, 1898, lithograph, Μ 172, 13.0 x 12.5 cm; The Art Institute of Chicago, E. H. Stickney Fund, Inv. no. 20.1830. Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper, c. 1495–98, wall-painting; Sta Maria delle Grazie, Milan. A reproduction of Leonardo’s Milan composition pinned to the studio wall is the key to an understanding of the trigger mechanism of this kind of artistic parallel.20 Redon did in fact surround himself in his studio with Leonardo reproductions as a stimulus to production. On 4 July 1908, he wrote to André Bonger of his daily visual contact with da Vinci: ‘J’ai là, au mur, la copie de la Cène que vous m’avez bien aimablement envoyée. C’est du Léonard doux, moins raffiné, plus tranquille. Elle tranche visiblement, auprès des griffonnements, de Léonard aussi, que j’apportai moi-même et qui l’entourent dans mon petit atelier. Ces dessins sont mes plus hauts excitants. C’est incontestablement avec Rembrandt ce qu’il y eut de plus magnifiquement réalisé.’ Unpublished letter, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam. We thus have a graphic description of the artist working encircled by Leonardo studies amidst which the Last Supper ‘cuts’ through to catch the eye continually. Mellerio must have seen these reproductions on visits to Redon. For Mellerio, in tune with the artist’s devotion to da Vinci at least since his schooling for the 1894 preface, the origins of ‘this print specially designed by the artist for our review, where in a few lightly sketched lines he knowingly rendered a definitive expression of sleep’, must have been obvious.21 ‘estampe que l’artiste a destinée spécialement à notre revue, et où, par quelques traits légers de croquis, il a su rendre une définitive expression de sommeil!’ Mellerio, ‘La Femme et l’Enfant’, p. 35.
Throughout these years of developing friendship and shared publication, Mellerio devoted considerable attention to amassing a comprehensive Redon collection. A full listing of his collection has yet to be published, but the extent of his Redon holdings can be reconstructed from scattered references. The National Gallery of Victoria’s Pegasus was a late addition to a diverse and chronologically representative corpus of Redon works in Mellerio’s possession. With his ‘bon gôut de la bonne épreuve’, the critic took care to assemble a complete collection of Redon’s lithographs, balancing superior pulls with first states and unusual impressions.22 See, for example, the extremely rare early state of Hantise, Μ 128, reproduced from his collection in Mellerio, 1923, p. 23. Redon was naturally enthusiastic for his friend’s collection of lithographs to be complete, and he supplemented Mellerio’s purchases with dedicated gifts.23 Mellerio’s copy of the lithograph after Arï Redon Mon Enfant of 1892, Μ 125, bears the dedication: ‘a André Mellerio/ Amicalement/ Od. R.’ (Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; A 11284). Knowledge of the full extent of Mellerio’s purchases versus Redon’s gifts awaits publication of Redon’s Livre de raison, a record kept by the artist from 1865 noting works, purchases and prices paid; the present whereabouts of this volume are uncertain. On the Livre de raison see Lettres de Gauguin, Gide, Huysmans, Jammes, Mallarmé, Verhaeren à Odilon Redon, prés-entées par Arï Redon, texte et notes par Roseline Bacou, Librairie José Corti, Paris, 1960, pp. 281–2. Beyond the realm of printmaking, Mellerio’s collection included charcoals, pastels and oils by Redon in a range of motifs and styles.24 Works deriving from Mellerio’s collection have appeared in numerous collections, notably those listed below. Exposition d’Oeuvres de Odilon Redon (1840–1916), Galerie E. Druet, Paris, 11–30 juin 1923 : Lithographies – 143. Sur la Coupe (Dans le Rêve X) (1879); 150. Hantise (1894); 151. Mouvement Idéaliste (frontispice) (1896). Odilon Redon. Exposition Retrospective de Son Oeuvre, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Palais du Louvre, Paris, mars 1926 : Peintures – 63. Pégase, vers 1900; Pastels – 140. Tête de jeune fille, vers 1900; Dessins – 215. L’Arbre, vers 1890; Lithographies – 242. Profil de Lumière, 1886. Exposition Odilon Redon, Petit Palais, Paris, fevrier–mars 1934 : Pastels – 69. Portrait de Marcel Mellerio, 1895; Dessins – 125. L’Apparition (fusain), 1875; 126. Les Dents de Bérénice (fusain), 1877; 128. Le Coeur a ses Raisons… (crayon), 1878; 139. La Désespérance (fusain), 1885; Lithographies –162–165. Dans le Rêve, 1879; 166–168. Les Origines, 1883; 169–170. Hommage à Goya, 1885; 171. Les Prêtresses furent en attente, 1886; 172. Christ, 1887; 173. Araignée, 1887; 174. Des Esseintes, 1888; 175–177. Tentation de Saint-Antoine, 1888; 178. A travers ses longs cheveux, 1889; 179. Pégase Captif, 1889; 180. Les Yeux Clos, 1890; 181. Serpent-Auréole, 1890; 182. Parsifal, 1892; 183. Le Liseur, 1892; 184. L’Aile, 1893; 185. Hantise, 1894; 186. Brunnhilde, 1894; 187. L’Art Céleste, 1894; 188. Centaure visant les nues, 1895; Gravures sur Cuire – 222–225. Les Fleurs du Mal, 1890. Odilon Redon 1840–1916. Au Profit de I’Orphelinat des Arts, Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, mai–juillet 1963 : Lithographies – 82. L’Aile, Μ 122; 87. Brünnhilde/Crépuscule des Dieux, Μ 130. Catalogue of Fine Lithographs by Odilon Redon. The Property of Stephen Higgins, Esq., Sotheby & Co., London, Tuesday 26 March 1968 : 1. Un masque sonne le glas funèbre, Μ 40; 4. L’Ange perdu ouvrit alors des ailes noires, Μ 64; 9. Parsifal, Μ 116; 13. Lumière, Μ 123; 15. Hantise, Μ 128; 16. Le Coursier, Μ 129. Odilon Redon. Dessins, Lithographies, Le Bateau Lavoir, Paris, 1979 : 6. Chevalier Solitaire, crayon conté et mine de plomb; 16. Tentation de Saint-Antoine, 1888, Μ 83–93. A further charcoal, Ange déchu, was reproduced in Mellerio, 1923. Exhibited publicly both during and after Redon’s lifetime, these works were eventually systematically dispersed by the critic himself and later by his estate.25 Lugt notes that Mellerio dispersed works in anonymous sales between 1928 and 1938, notably 9 June 1938. See Frits Lugt, Les Marques de Dessins et d’Estampes. Supplément, Martinus Nijhoff, La Haye, 1956, p. 20. The Melbourne Pegasus was auctioned at the Hôtel Drouot, Paris on 2 June 1943. Works deriving from Mellerio’s hands often bear his collector’s mark, the monogram AMO inside a diamond, visible in the lower right of the Portrait of a young woman from the Woodner Family collection (fig. 5).26 Portrait of a Young Woman, pencil and charcoal on serge paper, 39.3 x 32.8 cm; Ian Woodner Family Collection, New York; WRCD-4. I am grateful to Mr. Ian Woodner for permission to inspect this work.
Apart from the important financial considerations for Redon, Mellerio’s collecting contributed significantly to the publicity surrounding the artist’s work. When organising exhibitions, Redon was always keen to borrow back works acquired by prominent literary, financial or artistic patrons and to place the details of ownership before the public in notes to the accompanying catalogue. Thus we find Mellerio lending a drawing and a grisaille painting to the 1894 Durand-Ruel retrospective, where their provenance is noted.27 Exposition Odilon Redon, Galeries Durand-Ruel, Paris, mars–avril 1894; Dessins et Fusains – 43. Apparition; Peintures – 55. Profil Monastique. Grisaille. Jean Lorrain, writing for L’Echo de Paris, launched into a vicious anti-semitic attack on the financial speculations of one of Redon’s earliest and best patrons Charles Hayem, but paused to note the other prestigious names on the collecting list:
It is also a great joy for me to see at this Redon show a number of works in the hands of true artists like MM. Stéphane Mallarmé and Huysmans, enlightened critics such as MM. Roger Marx and Mellerio, and the selfless art-lovers Count La Rochefoucauld and the barrister Picard.28 Jean Lorrain, L’Echo de Paris, 19 avril 1894; reprinted as ‘Un Etrange Jongleur’ in his Sensations et Souvenirs, Charpentier, Paris, 1895, p. 218.*
Mellerio likewise joins the list of lending patrons at Redon’s Durand-Ruel showing in 1900, and his important retrospective exhibition at the Salon d’Automne of 1904.29 Exposition d’oeuvres anciennes et récentes de Odilon Redon, Galeries Durand-Ruel, Paris, 10–26 mai 1900 : Pastels – 14. Maisons à Morgat. Salon d’Automne. 2e Exposition, Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées, Paris, 15 octobre–15 novembre 1904 : Dessins – 43. Vieilles maisons.
In view of Mellerio’s prominent role as patron and friend, and the success of their early literary collaborations, it is not surprising that Redon entrusted to the younger man the preparation of a catalogue devoted to his life and oeuvre. Redon’s correspondence with his Dutch Maecenas, André Bonger, casts light on the evolution of this new and ambitious project. Redon’s intensive graphic production in the 1890s had already placed the first catalogue of his lithographs, published by Jules Destrée in 1891, firmly out of date. On the appearance of Destrée’s tome though, Huysmans had lavished praise on its indispensable contribution to Redon studies – ‘at last we have a monument erected to Redon – for until now there have only been short studies or brief articles … This is the tome we must consult in future in order to know Redon …’30 ‘Voici done enfin le monument élevé à Redon car jusqu’ici il n’avait que de courtes ou de brefs articles … C’est le bouquin qu’il faudra consulter si l’on veut connaître Redon…’ Huysmans to Jules Destrée, 29 April 1891; Huysmans, Lettres a Destrée, pp. 176–7. See Jules Destrée, L’Oeuvre Lithographique de Odilon Redon. Catalogue Descriptif, Edmond Deman, Bruxelles, 1891. The complimentary reactions of literary friends, and the manner in which Destrée’s judgements quickly became the source of much favourable press response to works subsequently exhibited, impressed on Redon the value of the explanatory monograph. Destrée, however, had worked primarily in Bruxelles, clarifying points by correspondence and on brief visits to the artist. Working with Mellerio gave Redon greater control over the creation of a volume which would disseminate his reputation through its impact on the press, stimulate the interest of buyers, and provide a platform for the indirect expression of an artistic credo.
*Aussi est-ce une joie pour nous de voir dans cette exposition des Redon quelques pièces aux mains de véritables artistes comme MM. Stéphane Mallarmé et Huysmans, de critiques éclairés comme MM. Roger Marx et Mellerio, d’amateurs désintéressés comme MM. le comte de La Rochefoucauld et I’avocat Picard.
Although Mellerio’s ground-breaking opus did not appear in published form until 1913, work on the monograph had clearly started as early as 1897.31 ‘Je relis votre lettre; mes remerciements pour l’envoi des deux photographies. Elles sont bien. elles mettent en évidence, quelque chose de plus qu’un dessin. art indiscutable, avec des faiblesses et des choses uniques, que j’ai trouvées seul. Dans ces réductions, il y a un ensemble bref qui m’intéresse. Elles me décident á désirer, pour un catalogue prochain, la reproduction de certaines autres pièces. La photographie est la dans son vrai rôle, quand elle multiplie, et si bien des dessins, presqu’identiquement.’ Redon to André Bonger, 9 November 1897; unpublished letter, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam. By the following year Mellerio can be identified as the author. The volume was due for publication in winter 1898–99, and intriguingly, the catalogue was envisaged to include paintings in addition to the graphic work.32 ‘P.S. Le mandat réglantant l’envoi du petit profil de femme m’est parvenu. Cette petite peinture sur carton n’a pas de titre spécial. J’en donnerai un cependant au catalogue. C’est bien mon jeune ami Mellerio qui le prépare, pour la fin de l’hiver.’Redon to André Bonger, 12 August 1898; unpublished letter, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam. In 1898 Redon and Mellerio had worked together especially closely, clarifying the critic’s biographical knowledge and visual analysis. Long lists of questions sent for Redon’s consideration and prolonged discussions in Paris enabled Mellerio to articulate his appreciation of the artist whose works he had diligently collected for almost a decade.33 Redon’s letters to Mellerio offer many insights into the writer’s explorations at this time : ‘Je ne veux pas tarder, mais il ne m’est pas possible de répondre à toutes les questions que vous me posez’, 21 July 1898; ‘J’ai toujours là sous les yeux votre lettre dont les questions m’embarrassent… Je vous dirai verbalement quand je vous verrai …’, 16 August 1898; ‘Mais venons à votre objet: oui, ce que vous me demandez cette fois m’est plus aisé pour la réponse, car tous les hommes, je crois, aiment à parler d’eux, sinon, à y penser quand ils le cachent’, 2 October 1898. For complete transcriptions of the correspondence see Lettres de Redon, 1923, pp.30–7. By April 1901, ‘my catalogue is not yet at the printer’s; but the text is finished’.34 ‘mon catalogue n’est pas encore à l’imprimerie; mais le texte est fait.’ Redon to André Bonger, 19 April 1901; Lettres de Redon, 1923, p. 48. The original letter is now conserved in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam. Yet in 1902 Mellerio’s text still remained unpublished and, more surprisingly, unseen by Redon.35 ‘II paraît que Floury, qui a véritablement le texte du catalogue en ses mains, l’annonce, d’un accent sérieux. Je ne sais rien de ce manuscrit, Mellerio ne me l’ayant pas montré. J’ai beaucoup de hâte de le connaître.’ Redon to André Bonger, 26 November 1902; unpublished letter, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam.
The gestatory stages of Mellerio’s monograph and catalogue span the period at the turn of the century when Redon executed and Mellerio probably acquired the National Gallery of Victoria’s Pegasus. The painting was more than a decade old when the volume, begun with such enthusiasm and promise, finally appeared; and in less than three years Redon was dead, before its importance as a first-hand witness of his presence and value as a scholarly tool could be fully appreciated. The hopes of critic and artist continued until November 1903, when Floury, who had published Mellerio’s Le Mouvement Idéaliste en Peinture, broke off relations with Mellerio and ended the project.36 ‘Autre chose qui vous intéressa, je dois vous l’apprendre. Floury a rompu ses rapports avec Mellerio pour le catalogue. II ne le fera pas. II a prétexte de la gêne, les frais assez grands que lui coutèrent ceux qu’il a déjà édités. C’est un querelle d’Allemand, ça trainait trop. II me demandait aussi de lui garantir une liste de souscripteurs. II ne vît pas que mes estampes s’étant toujours écoulés en un tirage de 50 ou 100 le catalogue ferait de même. Enfin nous étions un peu ridicule, Mellerio et moi, de cette éternelle attente; nous sommes libérés. Je me demande s’il ne serait pas mieux que je fisse ce document moi-même, sans aucune prétention, simplement, sans montage de cou, et avec des notes d’art et de ma vie même que je pourrai étendre tout à mon aise. Si je pouvais disposer d’un ou deux mois de solitude retirée, avec seulement du papier et de l’encre, je ferais la chose, bien agréablement, je vous l’assure. On me l’a déjà demandé.’Redon to André Bonger, 26 November 1903; unpublished letter, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam. Redon became a financial prospect for Floury again only after his death, and references to this ‘unfortunate’ incident were suppressed in a later publication. At the time Redon reacted with typically resigned humiliation.37 When a selection from Redon’s correspondence was published in 1923, a long section from his letter to André Bonger of 5 February 1904 was deleted; see Lettres de Redon, 1923, pp. 53–6. The excised passage originally read as follows: ‘Ces reproductions de Berlin dont vous voulez bien me parler, sont bien, en effet. Elles me donnent l’espérance que mes pauvres petites tirages si restreints seront peut-être, plus tard, remultipliés. Mon Dieu que Floury fut borné et timide, de lésiner ainsi qu’il la fait. A la vue de ces planches, réduites par je ne sais par quel procédé mais suffisamment nettes et noires, fortes de vie expressive, j’ai eu le regret de mon défunt catalogue. Un choix, reproduit ainsi ferait un ensemble de quelqu’intérèt, ce me semble, disons de nouveauté, hélas! Loin d’ici peut-être. Car le Boulevard gâte tout, ce boulevard qui rit d’abord et se dejuge ensuite. Floury y a l’air d’un forcené. Je me suis une fois entretenu avec lui; il écrivait néanmoins à son comptoir une lettre, façonnait une note pour un client qui la payait, rendait la monnaie, donnait un ordre, faisait un signe aimable à un amateur de livres qui entrait, et il me causait toujours, distrait et actif. Nous devons être pour lui des sortes de revenants bizarres. “On m’a écrit de Rome pour souscrire à votre catalogue”, me dit-il avec ironie, et un coup d’oeil d’entente à un voisin. Et l’on sentait tout le néant que ce lointain évoquait en lui. Moi j’étais ravi de ces distances’. Redon to André Bonger, 5 February 1904; unpublished letter, Rijksprentenkabinet; Amsterdam. I would suggest that this censorship, which places the whole volume of Redon’s correspondence under suspicion, occurred as a result of the renewal of relations between Floury and both Mellerio and Mme Redon. Mellerio was about to produce his expanded monograph on Redon with Floury–Mellerio 1923; and Mme Redon had the year before published with Floury, Redon’s autobiographical and artistic notes. See Odilon Redon, A Soi-Même, Journal (1867–1915). Notes sur la Vie, I’Art et les Artistes, H. Floury, Paris, 1922.
This final collaboration continued with increasingly ironic tardiness. In February 1913, Redon wrote to his friend Bonger of the catalogue ‘which will be a deluxe job, documenting the various states, edition numbers, with everything quite exact’; but hopes of the opus reaching a wide public had been abandoned, for ‘it is to be published for a society of collectors, and will not be for general sale’.38 ‘en grand luxe, et qui donnera les documents sur les diverses états, et les tirages, le tout trés exactement… ça paraîtra pour une société de collectionneurs, et non dans le commerce.’ Redon to André Bonger, 1 February 1913; Lettres de Redon, 1923, p. 101. It was still another year before the artist was able finally to send off copies to selected friends and collectors:
My dear friend, I’ve just hurriedly posted you Mellerio’s catalogue. I hope it reaches you despite the current mail hold-up. Let me know what you think of the text. Mellerio worked on it at least ten years ago now. You’ll note the care he took to provide the right information. I think it can only be a great help for new collectors. In any case, it’s finished.39 Redon to André Bonger, 19 January 1914; unpublished letter, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam.*
*Cher Monsieur et ami, j’ai mis en poste, hativement à votre adresse, le catalogue de Mellerio; j’espère qu ’il vous parviendra malgré I’encombrement des envois à un tel moment. Vous me direz comment vous trouvez le texte. Mellerio fit son travail il y a une dizaine d’années. Vous verrez quel soin il a mis dans les renseignements fournis. Je crois qu’il ne pourra être que d’un bon secours pour les nouveaux collectionneurs. Enfin, c’est fait.
Redon soon had other preoccupations. The outbreak of war would involve his son in combat and push Mellerio’s catalogue into the background. In the end the critic had restricted his attention to the lithographic oeuvre, catalogued with a care and diligence still unsurpassed today. Redon unfortunately did not live to see his friend’s volume, the ‘bon secours pour les nouveaux collectionneurs’, become a standard reference in print rooms around the world.
Mellerio’s devotion to Redon continued after the publication of the catalogue and indeed long after the artist’s death. Articles on diverse aspects of Redon’s oeuvre flowed sporadically from the critic’s hand.40 André Mellerio, Odilon Redon, Son Oeuvre Grave et Lithographie’, La Nouvelle Revue, 15 fevrier 1914, pp.442-8. André Mellerio, Odilon Redon, 1840- 1916′, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1920, pp.137-56. He remained on good terms with the artist’s widow, and received gifts of unusual items she discovered in cleaning up her husband’s estate.41 One such gift is preserved in Paris, one of only three pulls of an early etching Méditation, Μ 207. The etching is inscribed lower left in pencil: ‘offerte à mon ami Mellerio / le 26 juin 1920 / (3 épreuves)’; and further annotated : ‘(á nettoyer) / donnée par Mme Redon / A.M.’; Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; A 11284. It seems likely that he was also involved in helping Mme Redon prepare the coherent corpus of Redon’s writings which appeared as A Soi-Même in 1922.42 Mellerio’s involvement would seem to be indicated from his statement on this publication: ‘En effet, grâce aux soins pieux de Mme Odilon Redon, se trouve joint un choix effectué parmi les manuscrits que l’artiste a laissés … Toutefois, on n’a pas jugé que la publication des manuscrits fut possible dans leur ensemble, trop peu d’années s’étant écoulées encore depuis la mort de Redon. Une sélection a done été effectuée sans que d’ailleur aucune correction – toujours sacrilège envers ceux qui ne sont plus, vint altérer le fond ni la forme.’ See André Mellerio, ‘Trois Peintres écri-vains. Delacroix – Fromentin – Odilon Redon’, La Nouvelle Revue, 15 avril 1923, p. 311. Mellerio’s comment that it was too close to the artist’s death to publish more than a selection, is ominous. The censored portions of Redon’s writings have never been recovered.Finally, in 1923, Mellerio penned a last tribute to his dead friend in a comprehensive volume of biography, reminiscences and aesthetic analysis that still remains an invaluable research tool. In his introduction to this volume, which, notably, included the first reproduction of Pegasus, he commented on the aptness of his role as definitive chronicler of his friend’s achievements:
However, the thought wouldn’t leave me – that almost thirty years of friendship and intimate discussions with the artist, being perpetually surrounded by his works, and having previously written on them – all this virtually obliged me to undertake a book.43 Mellerio 1923, p. 7.*
In view of the long history of Mellerio’s relationship with Redon narrated here, there is no reason to disagree with him.
It is in the context of this friendship that we should view the Melbourne Pegasus. The painting, beautiful in itself, gains in significance from the fact of its ownership by Mellerio, as a work Redon must have delighted to see enter his collection. I would like, however, to further suggest that Mellerio’s possession of the Pegasus relates both to his long-standing appreciation of this theme in Redon’s oeuvre and to his awareness of the art-historical interests of Redon which contributed to the evolution of the image.
Redon’s enthusiasm for horses dated from an early age. Numerous sketches of horses drawn from life survive, and Redon reported frequent visits to horse markets to Oulmont:
He often used to tell me how in his youth he took advantage of the fact that he lived near the avenue de Maine, and could go to the horse-market. If he now knows how to capture their rhythmic movements, he owes it to this old habit.44 Charles Oulmont, ‘Souvenirs sur Odilon Redon’, Le Gaulois, samedi 22 mai 1920, p. 3.†
*Cependant, la pensée s ’est imposé à nous: que presque trente années d’amicales relations et de conversations intimes avec I’artiste, la perpétuelle fréquentation de ses oeuvres, aussi d’antérieurs travaux à leur égard, nous créaient une véritable obligation.
† II me conta souvent comment, dans sa jeunesse, il profita du voisinage de I’avenue de Maine pour visiter le marché aux chevaux. S’il savait traduire leurs mouvements rhythmés, c’est à cette habitude ancienne qu’il dût.
His attraction to sketching horses was an impulse Redon discussed with Mellerio, as indicated by the latter’s reminiscences: ‘We need hardly recall here that Redon – who in fact rode passionately in his youth – developed through curiosity and admiration an intense attraction which stayed with him all his life as an artist’.45 ‘Ne faut-il point rappeler ici qu’envers le cheval, Redon, qui le pratiqua de fait et passionnément dans sa jeunesse, éprouvait et conserva toujours comme artiste, une attirance mêlée de curiosité et d’admiration.’ Mellerio 1923, p. 137. It is not surprising therefore that Mellerio responded sympathetically to Redon’s numerous equine compositions.
While openly acknowledging the process of copying after nature, Redon remained concerned to present the viewer with a personal statement rather than a passively mimetic recording of nature. He considered his equine studies unfit for exhibition, arguing that art should exceed rather than copy nature through imbuing itself with thought, idea and ‘moral life’. In Redon’s finished products the horse motif is ennobled by the imposition of a mythologically evocative title, or transcended by the obfuscatory mystique of intense chiaro-scuro or a geometrically abstracted setting. This is clearly the case with the Pégase captif, 1889 (fig.6) and Le coursier, 1894 (fig.7), lithographs of varying resonance which the artist produced during the period of his acquaintance with Mellerio.46 Pégase Captif, 1889, lithograph, Μ 102, 34.0 x 29.3 cm; The Art Institute of Chicago, E. H. Stickney Fund. Le Coursier, 1894, lithograph, Μ 129, 21.7 x 18.5 cm; The Art Institute of Chicago, E. H. Stickney Fund, Acc. 20.1638. Mellerio possessed a copy of each of these compositions, and was in fact inspired by the penumbral power of the Pégase captif to compose a sonnet thereon, ‘La Grande Capture‘, in 1893.47 ‘LA GRANDE CAPTURE. A Odilon Redon.Le poète, pour qui puissantes ont parlé Les légendes, en a voulu vivre le rêve … Et dans le brouillard clair du matin qui se lève, Au pays des chimères il s’en est allé. Poursuivant sans trêve le long mirage instable, II a connu, sous les soleils noirs, le péril, L’affre et le doùte – quand, dans un piège subtil Enfin il a rêné le Pégase indomptable! Mais, dans son coeur le hâtif dégôut sourdement Monte – des vains lauriers et du peuple acclamant L’inespéré triomphe en la haute aventure … Et, lent il s’en revient dans les brumes du soir, Vainqueur hasardeux, craignant encore de voir Hors de son poing las ruer la grande Capture!30 décembre 1893. André MELLERIO.’ Mellerio, Odilon Redon, 1913, p. 155. For Mellerio’s ownership of the two works see above, fn. 24. No doubt Redon received in due course a copy of this poetic essay: his reaction to it is not recorded.
Redon consistently tempered his studies from nature with frequent visits to the Louvre, copies after the old masters, and absorption of art-historical literature. His intense relationship with the art of the past is linked to a devoutly espoused polemic concerning the right of the artist to go beyond mimetic subservience to nature, the right to dream, to indulge in poetic shifts and intellectual undercurrents, and to include references to past artists believed to have similar anti-naturalistic sentiments. Mellerio himself attempted to synthesise this combination of naturalistic and artistic stimuli in a neglected review of Redon’s lithographic suite La tentation de Saint-Antoine of 1896:
But what people generally don’t know, is just how strongly grounded the remarkably personal work of this artist is – built up intellectually and technically from solid education and toil coupled with his sound moral fibre. First, there is intense study of the masters: Albrecht Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Goya, Delacroix; and a whole series of drawn and painted copies after Delacroix and Leonardo, done with love and great thought. Then there are abundant sketches and canvases taken from nature, which reveal at once a deep and sincere affection for the natural environment, and a skill as a colourist that alone should suffice to make the artist’s reputation.48 André Mellerio, ‘La Tentation de Saint- Antoine (3e Série) par Odilon Redon’, L’Avenir Artistique et Littéraire, 1er août 1896, p. 30.*
*Mais ce qu’on ignore généralement, c’est sur quelles assises solides d’education de travail, de moralité de caractère, s’est édifié au point de vue intellectuel et technique, I’oeuvre si remarquablement particulier de l’artiste. Ce sont d’abord les Maîtres étudiés à fond: AIbert Dürer, Léonard de Vinci, Rembrandt, Goya, Delacroix. De ce dernier et de Léonard, comme dessins et comme peintures, maintes copies faites amoureusement et intelligemment. Ensuite tout une série abondante de croquis et de toiles sur nature, révélant en même temps qu’une affection profonde et sincère de la simple ambiance, un tempérament de coloriste qui aurait suffi à réputer I’artiste.
Concrete evidence of Redon’s study of Italian art may be found in an unpublished sketchbook in Chicago, where the artist made a list of trecento and quattrocento masters – Giotto, Orcagna, Fra Angelico, Masaccio, Uccello – he intended to study in the Louvre or elsewhere.49 Sketchbook dedicated to René Philipon; The Art Institute of Chicago, RX633 521112. I am grateful to Anselmo Carini for his help in examining this carnet. Mellerio indeed may well have accompanied Redon to the Louvre, and listened to his impromptu expositions on the Italian school.
In the light of this interest in the Italianate tradition, it is possible that one stream of Redon’s equine iconography reflects study of Andrea Mantegna’s Parnassus, a work doubtless familiar to Redon from its constant display at the Louvre throughout the latter half of the 19th century (fig. 8).50 Andrea Mantegna, Parnassus, c. 1497, canvas, 159 x 192 cm; Musée du Louvre, Paris, Inv. no. 370.
The delicate vignette to the right of this work represents Mercury in languid contrapposto with counter-balanced caduceus, coupled with and resting upon Pegasus. Here the distribution of thrust and counter-thrust in the form of Pegasus, and the play of the creature’s relaxed and weight-bearing leg, provide a perfect mirror image of the design and mass of the Mercury figure. The self-sufficiency of this pair, generating and containing their own echoes in exclusivity, while acting as a potentially divisive unit within the overall composition, nevertheless creates a highly pleasing, magnified focal point of interest. Redon furnished justification for this kind of visual citation, in a commentary on the continuity of artistic tradition:
Love of the masters is not a great fault, and therefore we should not blame archaism too much. When it is well understood, archaism is approbation. A work of art descends directly from an earlier work. There should be no surprise then if the fervent disciple sometimes offers the weak image of a god whom he seeks – and adores.51 Odilon Redon, A Soi-Même, H. Floury, Paris, 1922; reprint edn, Librairie José Corti, Paris, 1979, p. 176.*
*L’amour des maîtres n’est pas un bien grand défaut et ne blâmons pas trop I’archaïsme. Lorsqu ’il est bien compris, I’archaïsme est une sanction. L’oeuvre d’art descend directement d’une autre oeuvre… Nulle surprise alors si le fervent disciple offre parfois le faible image d’un dieu qu’il cherche, qu’il adore.
That the author of this statement engaged in visual quotation from Mantegna’s Parnassus need not surprise. For Redon, quotation from artistic masterpieces added yet another layer of potential readability to his carefully contrived, anti-naturalistic compositions.
An early, subtle interpretation of the Mantegna-derived motif is to be found in Redon’s Pegasus and Bellerophon (fig. 9).52 Pegasus and Bellerophon, charcoal with white on buff paper, 53.7 x 35.9 cm; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Robert Lehman Collection. I am grateful to Dr George Szabo, Curator of the Robert Lehman Collection, for assistance with information pertaining to this drawing. Apart from the appeal of the shared subject matter, Redon was clearly attracted by the potential for exploring elegant linear rhythm which Mantegna’s composition afforded. His charcoal drawing, while obviously derived from the earlier piece, is at the same time creative and independent in its response to it. The characters have been turned around in a negative image, while the male figure now stands with his back to the viewer and right arm raised in dramatic gesture. The symmetry of the mutually responsive inclined heads and the balance of weighted and raised legs is preserved. Though free in his use of swiftly applied charcoal lines, Redon is careful to retain firm contours which ensure an unimpeded rhythmic play. His figures are also balanced by a careful choice of highlighted areas. Thus the intense glow of Pegasus’s head, capturing light as it turns into it, is poised against the highlighted thigh and buttock of Bellerophon, while the illuminated leg of the horse establishes a second line of echo with the spot of light on its rump.
Mantegna’s Pegasus reappears in the lithograph L’Aile of 1893 (fig. 10), where the image is swollen and severed by the borders of the plate.53 L’Aile, 1893, lithograph, Μ 122, 31.6 x 24.5 cm; The Art Institute of Chicago, E. H. Stickney Fund, Inv. no. 20.1707. A headband and mane coiffured into curling tresses are new touches, otherwise the play of forms remains the same, transposed into reverse by the lithographic process. Rich blacks lend a new drama to the equine character, the lightless eye sockets carry an especially vivid message of melancholy. The right wing, however, has been shrunk too greatly for necessary inclusion – it carries with it the essential iconographic significance – and this provides a slightly jarring note. Needless to say, Mellerio possessed his own copy of L’Aile.
In 1894, shortly after the success of his Durand-Ruel retrospective, Redon boldly requested Thadée Natanson to include his work in a series of original prints offered as complimentary extras with the monthly La Revue Blanche. Natanson, who had dubbed Redon the Prince du Rêve in his review of the Durand-Ruel showing, not surprisingly accepted.54 Thadée Natanson, ‘Exposition Odilon Redon’, La Revue Blanche, mai 1894, p. 470; see also Thadée Natanson, Peints à Leur Tour, Albin Michel, Paris, 1948, p. 244. Perhaps in order to cope with the large number of copies to be printed, Redon submitted a daringly sparse composition, Cheval Ailé, which appeared in the June 1894 edition of La Revue Blanche (fig. 11).55 Cheval Ailé, 1894, lithograph, Μ 127, 15.8 x 11.8 cm; The Art Institute of Chicago, E. H. Stickney Fund.
Pushing his umbrageous explorations to a dramatic extreme, Redon maps out a profile Pegasus with evocative sketchiness, a quick linear notation relying for its impact almost entirely on the intense visual contrast between the deep velvety black of the lithographic ink and the rich luminosity of the cream chine colle support paper – an effect which is lost in reproduction. While the vibrant chiaroscuro lends credence to Redon’s claim to be the student of Rembrandt, on the border of light and dark the tentatively raised foreleg again harks back to familiarity with the image of equine pawing in the Parnassus.
The Pegasus should be seen as a late product in this series of compositions stimulated wholly or partially by memory of Mantegna’s poetic motif. Abandoning the enveloping penumbra of the lithographic studies, Redon brings the theme forward into both light and colour. Following his usual practice, he may well have gained inspiration for this chromatic exercise from a thoughtful review of his earlier charcoals and lithographs, thereby transferring the Parnassus echo at second hand. Painting in the basic forms of his figures with no apparent underdrawing, Redon worked and reworked the composition to systematically obscure a fine off-white priming layer. Fluid brushwork combines with incision and perhaps use of a scratch-pen to build up a complex interweaving of differentiated describing lines.
The medium used to flesh out the oscillating red tonalities is difficult to determine, but is possibly a mixture of oil, essential or reduced oil, and applied crayon. In its rich intermixing of methods and materials, the Pegasus reflects Redon’s interest at the turn of the century in exploring the luminous potential of mixed-media compositions. Roughly contemporaneous letters refer to the use of ‘chemically special’ colours or a potpourri of technical practices: ‘a bit of everything –distemper, “aoline”, oil, even a pastel I’m getting good results from at the moment, a giant pastel.’56 ‘un peu de tout, la dètrempe, l’aoline, l’huile, le pastel même dont j’ai un bon résultat en ce moment-ci, un pastel géant.’ Redon to André Bonger, 17 January 1901; unpublished letter, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam. The special colours are mentioned in a letter to Bonger of 22 December 1904; ‘Confiné, je fis cette sorte d’esquisse assez rapidement. Je la fis avec des couleurs chimiquement spéciales à bonne durée. Depuis, cette peinture ne changea pas d’ailleurs’; unpublished letter, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam.
Caught in a violently twisted pose, this Pegasus combines the cocked foreleg, spread wing and inclined head borrowed from the Parnassus vignette with a champing vivacity that belies Redon’s haunting of the saleyards, sketchbook in hand. To the right, the Mercury/Bellerophon figure reappears, poised in ambiguous juxtaposition with his equine ally. Considered in isolation, the Melbourne Pegasus may seem at first devoid of obvious art-historical links. But when viewed in the context of a developing series of Parnassus reinterpretations it bears eloquent testimony to the power of Mantegna’s creation to hold sway over an image dear to Redon during more than a decade. For Mellerio, observing the evolvement of the Pegasus motif on visits to Redon’s studio, accompanying the artist to the Louvre to stand before the Parnassus, or absorbing his reminiscences of innumerable equine observations, the acquisition of the Pegasus for his collection must have seemed an obvious choice. In this painting Redon’s goal of synthetic stimulation triumphantly manifests itself. Art and life mingle in a classic nexus.
In his letter to Mellerio of 18 November 1891, Odilon Redon expressed mingled doubt and hope for the survival of his art:
An artist sees his work a lot more clearly outside his own studio. He weighs up the chance or the impossibility of it lasting. My black creations, human nonetheless, will they survive? God grant that I can ask the same question, next to you, in ten or in twenty years, if only out of a wish for long life.57 Lettres de Redon, 1923, p. 17.*
The journey of the Pegasus, from Redon’s studio to Mellerio’s parlour, to the walls of the National Gallery of Victoria, affirms these hopes. Redon died in 1916, André Mellerio in 1943. Separated by death, the lives of the two men remain united forever in the story of affection, collaboration and creation surrounding the red Pegasus.58 I would like to thank Ann Galbally, Robin Jackson, John Donald, Sonia Dean and Irena Zdanowicz for their kind assistance in the preparation of this article. I wish also to express my gratitude to David Parker, Master of Ormond College, University of Melbourne, for providing an atmosphere of quiet and scholarship in which to work. This article is for Joe Greene.*
*L’artiste voit mieux son ouvrage hors de I’atelier. II pèse les chances possibles ou impossibles de la Durée. Ces noires évocations, mais humaines, y résistemnt-elles?Dieu veuille que je puisse me poser la même question, avec vous, dans dix ans, dans vingt ans, par ambition de longevité corporelle, au moins.
Ted Gott, National Gallery of Victoria, (in 1986).
Notes
1 Redon to André Mellerio, 18 November 1891. Lettres d’Odilon Redon 1878–1916, G. van Oest, Paris & Bruxelles 1923, pp. 16–17. It is intriguing that even the most basic facts of Mellerio’s life, such as just what he did for a living, remain unknown. He is notable for his absence from the standard encyclopaedic introductions to the kaleidoscopic social whirl of fin-de-siècle Paris: Baldick’s Life of Huysmans, Mondor’s Vie de Mallarmé and the multi-volume Mallarmé correspondence. In 1978 Phillip Dennis Cate, organising an exhibition around Mallarmé’s publication of 1898 La Lithographie Originate en Couleurs, lamented that ‘little is known of André Mellerio’s early years.’ See Phillip Dennis Cate and Sinclair Hamilton Hitchings, The Colour Revolution. Colour Lithography in France 1890–1900, Peregrine Smith, Santa Barbara & Salt Lake City, 1978, p. 73. It is hoped that from the collation of Mellerio data presented here, some picture of this major but forgotten character will begin to emerge.
2. Pegasus, mixed media on card, 47.4 x 37.2 cm; National Gallery of Victoria, Felton Bequest 1951, Inv. no. 2361/4. The Pegasus was first exhibited publicly in 1926, and then dated 1900; Odilon Redon. Exposition Retrospective de Son Oeuvre, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Palais du Louvre, Paris, mars 1926, no. 63. The work was surely purchased by Mellerio before the artist’s death in 1916. I am grateful to Sonia Dean and John Payne for their assistance in examining the Pegasus.
3 ‘ouvrage plus amusant que le crayon lithographique et, ma foi, plus fructueux aussi…le pastel, en effet, me soutient, matériellement et moralement; il me rajeunit, je le produis sans fatigue.’ Redon to André Bonger, 28 April 1896 and 29 May 1897; unpublished letters, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam. I am grateful to Dr J. W. Niemeijer, Director of the Rijksprentenkabinet, for permission to study Redon’s unpublished correspondence with André Bonger.
4 Le Liseur or Le Graveur, oil and pastel on paper, 47.0 x 47.0 cm; Musée du Petit Palais, Paris, Inv. 1221.
5 André Mellerio, Odilon Redon, Société Pour l’Etude de la Gravure Française, Paris, 1913, p. 29. Hennequin drowned at Samois on 13 July 1888, the very day he arrived for a holiday with Odilon and Camille Redon. Redon’s horror and despair are captured by Huysmans in a letter to the German collector Arij Prins of 19 July 1888: ‘Pour continuer à écrire ainsi à bâtons rompus – je vous apprends que le malheureux Hennequin qui était allé passer les fêtes du 14 juillet, à Samois, chez Redon, s’est noyé. Les Redon sont comme fous; j’ai reçu une lettre de Redon, effrayée, à la suite de cet évènement.’ J.-K. Huysmans, Lettres Inédites à Arij Prins 1885–1907, publiées et annotées par Louis Gillet, Librairie Droz, Genève, 1977, p. 131. Mellerio later changed the date of his first meeting with Redon to post-January 1889. Given that, on Redon’s testimony, the text of Mellerio’s 1913 opus was completed in first draft by 1901 (see below), I am inclined to accept the 1888 version. For the latter dating see André Mellerio, Odilon Redon. Peintre, Dessinateur et Graveur, H. Floury, Paris, 1923, p. 57. This fundamental source will be referred to as Mellerio, 1923, in later footnotes.
6 ‘tant bien que mal, plus mal que bien… actuellement dans une serieuse gêne.’ Huysmans to Jules Destrée, 17 October 1885 and 3 February 1886. J.-K. Huysmans, Lettres Inédites a Jules Destrée, introduction et notes de Gustave Vanwelkenhuyzen, Librairie Droz, Genève, 1967, pp. 64, 71–72.
7 Mellerio himself later noted the strategic timing of the friendship: C’est peu de temps après que nous eûmes fait la connaissance, bientôt affectueusement intime, de Redon, et lorsque luisaient pour lui quelques légitimes espérances, que commença la période sans doute la plus douleureuse de sa vie. Elle devait durer plusieurs années.’ Mellerio 1923, p. 60.
8 ‘d’intimes et cordiales réunions où, tout en prenant une tasse de thé, on agitait, en de longues causeries, d’intéressantes questions d’art.’ Mellerio, 1923, p. 65.
9 For the private viewings of Redon’s drawings see Huysmans’s letter to Jules Destrée of 17 October 1885: ‘C’est un désarmé par les temps qui courent – II a dans son atelier d’extraordinaires dessins, infiniment superieurs à ceux de ses albums. II faut avoir vu ça pour se figurer jusqu’ou peut aller l’art du rêve. / Un soir, avec Mallarmé, en feuilletant ses cartons, nous demeurâmes béants devant d’etranges primitifs qu’il renouvelait, en plein cauchemar.’ Huysmans, Lettres à Destrée, pp. 64–9.
10 Redon’s account of a Huysmanic humiliation session, dictated to Ary Leblond, survives: ‘Huysmans était un causeur exquis! toutefois d’une nuance un peu autre que Mallarmé. Rien, par exemple, n’avait pour nous de saveur plus comique que de l’entendre nous dire ses comptes rendus des ‘Salon’. II venait, en effet, régulièrement les ‘essayer’ sur nous, en les parlant, avant de les mettre noir sur papier blanc pour le journal οù il tenait la rubrique de la critique d’Art. Ah! quelque chrétien qu’il se dit, il avait vite oublié, notre homme, tout élément de charité ou pitié quand il s’agis-sait de flageller la “mauvaise peinture!” Car il avait un oeil, autant que sa plume, cruel.’ See ‘Huysmans, mon grand frère par Odilon Redon. Propos recueillis par Ary Leblond’, Arts, 7–13 novembre 1956, p. 9.
11 André Mellerio, ‘Les Artistes à L’Atelier. Odilon Redon’, L’Art Dans les Deux Mondes, 4 juillet 1891, p. 79.
12 ‘…les “machines” d’Odilon Redon, qui sont le résultat de la démence’. L., ‘Vile Exposition Annuelle des XX’, Le Journal des Artistes, 20 février 1890.
13 André Mellerio, ‘Odilon Redon’, in Exposition Odilon Redon, Galeries Durand-Ruel, Paris, mars–avril 1894, pp. 3–4.
14 I include here a sampling of the responses to Mellerio’s introduction.
Les inombrables fumistes par qui l’art est envahi ont inventé, pour atteindre plus vite à la gloire, les petites expositions et les préfaces de catalogue. II est question de créer le Montreur. Quand on entrera dans une salle pour y voir des tableaux modernes, on sera happé par un monsieur qui s’efforcera de vous retenir devant les oeuvres, de vous les faire comprendre – et même acheter. / Le besoin du montreur se fait irrésistiblement sentir devant les dessins de M. Odilon Redon, car le catalogue et sa préface ne font qu’augmenter l’incompréhensibilité de l’oeuvre.
Jean-E. Schmitt, ‘Exposition Odilon Redon’, Le Siècle, samedi 31 mars 1894.
Ainsi s’exprime M. André Mellerio, préfacier du catalogue de l’exposition Odilon Redon (galerie Durand-Ruel). / Certes, à parcourir les deux salles de la galerie, on a souvent l’impression de Rembrandt, de Dürer, de Goya et du Vinci.
Marc Croisilles, ‘[Odilon Redon], L’Oeuvre d’Art, 25 Avril 1894, p. 21.
M. Mellerio, qui écrit une préface pour le catalogue de la présente exposition, n’hésite pas à établir une filiation entre M. Odilon Redon, Dürer, Vinci et… Rembrandt! /Le rapprochement est aussi flatteur que téméraire, car il met en parallèle trois artistes dont le perpétuel souci fut la recherche de la forme, et un quatrième qui professe pour elle un écrasant dédain.
Gérard de Beauregard, ‘Exposition de M. Odilon Redon (Durand-Ruel)’, La Patrie, lundi 2 avril 1894.
Study of the contemporary criticism of Redon is still very much in its infancy. The fundamental text alas, still remains Mellerio’s 1913 selection of extracts – Mellerio, Odilon Redon, 1913, pp. 130–49. Mellerio indicated that his extracts were drawn from two scrapbooks loaned to him by Redon, covering the period 1861–97. The present whereabouts of these scrap-books of clippings is uncertain; and they remain, unfortunately, unpublished. Mellerio’s transcriptions are marred by incorrect dates, missing identifications of authors and missing titles of journals; and his choice of extracts is often misleading.
15 André Mellerio, Le Mouvement Idéaliste en Peinture, H. Floury, Paris, 1896, p. 9.
16 Le Mouvement Idéaliste en Peinture. Frontispice, 1896, lithograph, Μ 159, 9.0 x 8.0 cm; The Art Institute of Chicago, E.H. Stickney Fund.
This lithograph has twice been mistakenly reproduced upside-down. See Alfred Werner, The Graphic Works of Odilon Redon, Dover, New York, 1969, pl. 134; and the reprint edn of Mellerio’s 1913 catalogue, Da Capo Press, New York, 1968, pl. 159. In both instances the composition loses the impact of its original intention.
17 Arï, 1898, lithograph, Μ 170, 20.8 x 12.5 cm.
There exist two unpublished copies of this lithograph which are of considerable interest. A trial proof before letters of the first state in Chicago bears the annotations of the printer Navier: ‘Monsieur Redon, j’ai tiré cette épreuve un peu loured – pour que vous voyez bien le travail qu’est sur la pierre. Vous pouvez grattez et en s’ajouter à votre aise. Recevez Monsieur mes sincères salutations, P. Navier.’ (The Art Institute of Chicago, E. H. Stickney Fund, Inv. no. 20.1826). Redon was later to add a title, date and monogram in the lower centre of the plate; and, in the second state, alter his monogrammed signature to one in cursive script, and insert a profile sketch of Arï at upper left. Evidence of the circulation of this ‘unsatisfactory’ lithograph is provided by a pull of the first state in sanguine ink in New York, bearing a red pencil dedication at lower left: ‘offer! à M. De Bois / affectueusement / Odilon Redon’. (Museum of Modern Art, New York; Louise R. Smith Fund, 73.57).
18 ‘la lithographie qu’Odilon Redon a faite pour quelques amis, d’après son fils Ary, cette tête d’enfant, très fine et ingênue, un peu rêveuse.’
André Mellerio, ‘La Femme et l’Enfant dans l’Oeuvre d’Odilon Redon’, L’Estampe et l’Affiche, 15 février 1898, p. 35.
19 Le Sommeil, 1898, lithograph, Μ 172, 13.0 x 12.5 cm; The Art Institute of Chicago, E. H. Stickney Fund, Inv. no. 20.1830. Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper, c. 1495–98, wall-painting; Sta Maria delle Grazie, Milan.
20 Redon did in fact surround himself in his studio with Leonardo reproductions as a stimulus to production. On 4 July 1908, he wrote to André Bonger of his daily visual contact with da Vinci: ‘J’ai là, au mur, la copie de la Cène que vous m’avez bien aimablement envoyée. C’est du Léonard doux, moins raffiné, plus tranquille. Elle tranche visiblement, auprès des griffonnements, de Léonard aussi, que j’apportai moi-même et qui l’entourent dans mon petit atelier. Ces dessins sont mes plus hauts excitants. C’est incontestablement avec Rembrandt ce qu’il y eut de plus magnifiquement réalisé.’ Unpublished letter, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam.
We thus have a graphic description of the artist working encircled by Leonardo studies amidst which the Last Supper ‘cuts’ through to catch the eye continually. Mellerio must have seen these reproductions on visits to Redon.
21 ‘estampe que l’artiste a destinée spécialement à notre revue, et où, par quelques traits légers de croquis, il a su rendre une définitive expression de sommeil!’
Mellerio, ‘La Femme et l’Enfant’, p. 35.
22 See, for example, the extremely rare early state of Hantise, Μ 128, reproduced from his collection in Mellerio, 1923, p. 23.
23 Mellerio’s copy of the lithograph after Arï Redon Mon Enfant of 1892, Μ 125, bears the dedication: ‘a André Mellerio/ Amicalement/ Od. R.’ (Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; A 11284). Knowledge of the full extent of Mellerio’s purchases versus Redon’s gifts awaits publication of Redon’s Livre de raison, a record kept by the artist from 1865 noting works, purchases and prices paid; the present whereabouts of this volume are uncertain. On the Livre de raison see Lettres de Gauguin, Gide, Huysmans, Jammes, Mallarmé, Verhaeren à Odilon Redon, prés-entées par Arï Redon, texte et notes par Roseline Bacou, Librairie José Corti, Paris, 1960, pp. 281–2.
24 Works deriving from Mellerio’s collection have appeared in numerous collections, notably those listed below.
Exposition d’Oeuvres de Odilon Redon (1840–1916), Galerie E. Druet, Paris, 11–30 juin 1923 : Lithographies – 143. Sur la Coupe (Dans le Rêve X) (1879); 150. Hantise (1894); 151. Mouvement Idéaliste (frontispice) (1896).
Odilon Redon. Exposition Retrospective de Son Oeuvre, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Palais du Louvre, Paris, mars 1926 : Peintures – 63. Pégase, vers 1900; Pastels – 140. Tête de jeune fille, vers 1900; Dessins – 215. L’Arbre, vers 1890; Lithographies – 242. Profil de Lumière, 1886.
Exposition Odilon Redon, Petit Palais, Paris, fevrier–mars 1934 : Pastels – 69. Portrait de Marcel Mellerio, 1895; Dessins – 125. L’Apparition (fusain), 1875; 126. Les Dents de Bérénice (fusain), 1877; 128. Le Coeur a ses Raisons… (crayon), 1878; 139. La Désespérance (fusain), 1885; Lithographies –162–165. Dans le Rêve, 1879; 166–168. Les Origines, 1883; 169–170. Hommage à Goya, 1885; 171. Les Prêtresses furent en attente, 1886; 172. Christ, 1887; 173. Araignée, 1887; 174. Des Esseintes, 1888; 175–177. Tentation de Saint-Antoine, 1888; 178. A travers ses longs cheveux, 1889; 179. Pégase Captif, 1889; 180. Les Yeux Clos, 1890; 181. Serpent-Auréole, 1890; 182. Parsifal, 1892; 183. Le Liseur, 1892; 184. L’Aile, 1893; 185. Hantise, 1894; 186. Brunnhilde, 1894; 187. L’Art Céleste, 1894; 188. Centaure visant les nues, 1895; Gravures sur Cuire – 222–225. Les Fleurs du Mal, 1890.
Odilon Redon 1840–1916. Au Profit de I’Orphelinat des Arts, Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, mai–juillet 1963 : Lithographies – 82. L’Aile, Μ 122; 87. Brünnhilde/Crépuscule des Dieux, Μ 130.
Catalogue of Fine Lithographs by Odilon Redon. The Property of Stephen Higgins, Esq., Sotheby & Co., London, Tuesday 26 March 1968 : 1. Un masque sonne le glas funèbre, Μ 40; 4. L’Ange perdu ouvrit alors des ailes noires, Μ 64; 9. Parsifal, Μ 116; 13. Lumière, Μ 123; 15. Hantise, Μ 128; 16. Le Coursier, Μ 129.
Odilon Redon. Dessins, Lithographies, Le Bateau Lavoir, Paris, 1979 : 6. Chevalier Solitaire, crayon conté et mine de plomb; 16. Tentation de Saint-Antoine, 1888, Μ 83–93.
A further charcoal, Ange déchu, was reproduced in Mellerio, 1923.
25 Lugt notes that Mellerio dispersed works in anonymous sales between 1928 and 1938, notably 9 June 1938. See Frits Lugt, Les Marques de Dessins et d’Estampes. Supplément, Martinus Nijhoff, La Haye, 1956, p. 20. The Melbourne Pegasus was auctioned at the Hôtel Drouot, Paris on 2 June 1943.
26 Portrait of a Young Woman, pencil and charcoal on serge paper, 39.3 x 32.8 cm; Ian Woodner Family Collection, New York; WRCD-4. I am grateful to Mr. Ian Woodner for permission to inspect this work.
27 Exposition Odilon Redon, Galeries Durand-Ruel, Paris, mars–avril 1894; Dessins et Fusains – 43. Apparition; Peintures – 55. Profil Monastique. Grisaille.
28 Jean Lorrain, L’Echo de Paris, 19 avril 1894; reprinted as ‘Un Etrange Jongleur’ in his Sensations et Souvenirs, Charpentier, Paris, 1895, p. 218.
29 Exposition d’oeuvres anciennes et récentes de Odilon Redon, Galeries Durand-Ruel, Paris, 10–26 mai 1900 : Pastels – 14. Maisons à Morgat.
Salon d’Automne. 2e Exposition, Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées, Paris, 15 octobre–15 novembre 1904 : Dessins – 43. Vieilles maisons.
30 ‘Voici done enfin le monument élevé à Redon car jusqu’ici il n’avait que de courtes ou de brefs articles … C’est le bouquin qu’il faudra consulter si l’on veut connaître Redon…’
Huysmans to Jules Destrée, 29 April 1891; Huysmans, Lettres a Destrée, pp. 176–7. See Jules Destrée, L’Oeuvre Lithographique de Odilon Redon. Catalogue Descriptif, Edmond Deman, Bruxelles, 1891.
31 ‘Je relis votre lettre; mes remerciements pour l’envoi des deux photographies. Elles sont bien. elles mettent en évidence, quelque chose de plus qu’un dessin. art indiscutable, avec des faiblesses et des choses uniques, que j’ai trouvées seul.
Dans ces réductions, il y a un ensemble bref qui m’intéresse. Elles me décident á désirer, pour un catalogue prochain, la reproduction de certaines autres pièces. La photographie est la dans son vrai rôle, quand elle multiplie, et si bien des dessins, presqu’identiquement.’
Redon to André Bonger, 9 November 1897; unpublished letter, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam.
32 ‘P.S. Le mandat réglantant l’envoi du petit profil de femme m’est parvenu. Cette petite peinture sur carton n’a pas de titre spécial. J’en donnerai un cependant au catalogue. C’est bien mon jeune ami Mellerio qui le prépare, pour la fin de l’hiver.’
Redon to André Bonger, 12 August 1898; unpublished letter, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam.
33 Redon’s letters to Mellerio offer many insights into the writer’s explorations at this time : ‘Je ne veux pas tarder, mais il ne m’est pas possible de répondre à toutes les questions que vous me posez’, 21 July 1898; ‘J’ai toujours là sous les yeux votre lettre dont les questions m’embarrassent… Je vous dirai verbalement quand je vous verrai …’, 16 August 1898; ‘Mais venons à votre objet: oui, ce que vous me demandez cette fois m’est plus aisé pour la réponse, car tous les hommes, je crois, aiment à parler d’eux, sinon, à y penser quand ils le cachent’, 2 October 1898.
For complete transcriptions of the correspondence see Lettres de Redon, 1923, pp.30–7.
34 ‘mon catalogue n’est pas encore à l’imprimerie; mais le texte est fait.’ Redon to André Bonger, 19 April 1901; Lettres de Redon, 1923, p. 48. The original letter is now conserved in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam.
35 ‘II paraît que Floury, qui a véritablement le texte du catalogue en ses mains, l’annonce, d’un accent sérieux. Je ne sais rien de ce manuscrit, Mellerio ne me l’ayant pas montré. J’ai beaucoup de hâte de le connaître.’
Redon to André Bonger, 26 November 1902; unpublished letter, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam.
36 ‘Autre chose qui vous intéressa, je dois vous l’apprendre. Floury a rompu ses rapports avec Mellerio pour le catalogue. II ne le fera pas. II a prétexte de la gêne, les frais assez grands que lui coutèrent ceux qu’il a déjà édités. C’est un querelle d’Allemand, ça trainait trop. II me demandait aussi de lui garantir une liste de souscripteurs. II ne vît pas que mes estampes s’étant toujours écoulés en un tirage de 50 ou 100 le catalogue ferait de même. Enfin nous étions un peu ridicule, Mellerio et moi, de cette éternelle attente; nous sommes libérés. Je me demande s’il ne serait pas mieux que je fisse ce document moi-même, sans aucune prétention, simplement, sans montage de cou, et avec des notes d’art et de ma vie même que je pourrai étendre tout à mon aise. Si je pouvais disposer d’un ou deux mois de solitude retirée, avec seulement du papier et de l’encre, je ferais la chose, bien agréablement, je vous l’assure.
On me l’a déjà demandé.’
Redon to André Bonger, 26 November 1903; unpublished letter, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam.
37 When a selection from Redon’s correspondence was published in 1923, a long section from his letter to André Bonger of 5 February 1904 was deleted; see Lettres de Redon, 1923, pp. 53–6. The excised passage originally read as follows: ‘Ces reproductions de Berlin dont vous voulez bien me parler, sont bien, en effet. Elles me donnent l’espérance que mes pauvres petites tirages si restreints seront peut-être, plus tard, remultipliés. Mon Dieu que Floury fut borné et timide, de lésiner ainsi qu’il la fait.
A la vue de ces planches, réduites par je ne sais par quel procédé mais suffisamment nettes et noires, fortes de vie expressive, j’ai eu le regret de mon défunt catalogue. Un choix, reproduit ainsi ferait un ensemble de quelqu’intérèt, ce me semble, disons de nouveauté, hélas! Loin d’ici peut-être. Car le Boulevard gâte tout, ce boulevard qui rit d’abord et se dejuge ensuite. Floury y a l’air d’un forcené. Je me suis une fois entretenu avec lui; il écrivait néanmoins à son comptoir une lettre, façonnait une note pour un client qui la payait, rendait la monnaie, donnait un ordre, faisait un signe aimable à un amateur de livres qui entrait, et il me causait toujours, distrait et actif.
Nous devons être pour lui des sortes de revenants bizarres. “On m’a écrit de Rome pour souscrire à votre catalogue”, me dit-il avec ironie, et un coup d’oeil d’entente à un voisin. Et l’on sentait tout le néant que ce lointain évoquait en lui. Moi j’étais ravi de ces distances’.
Redon to André Bonger, 5 February 1904; unpublished letter, Rijksprentenkabinet; Amsterdam.
I would suggest that this censorship, which places the whole volume of Redon’s correspondence under suspicion, occurred as a result of the renewal of relations between Floury and both Mellerio and Mme Redon. Mellerio was about to produce his expanded monograph on Redon with Floury–Mellerio 1923; and Mme Redon had the year before published with Floury, Redon’s autobiographical and artistic notes. See Odilon Redon, A Soi-Même, Journal (1867–1915). Notes sur la Vie, I’Art et les Artistes, H. Floury, Paris, 1922.
38 ‘en grand luxe, et qui donnera les documents sur les diverses états, et les tirages, le tout trés exactement… ça paraîtra pour une société de collectionneurs, et non dans le commerce.’
Redon to André Bonger, 1 February 1913; Lettres de Redon, 1923, p. 101.
39 Redon to André Bonger, 19 January 1914; unpublished letter, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam.
40 André Mellerio, Odilon Redon, Son Oeuvre Grave et Lithographie’, La Nouvelle Revue, 15 fevrier 1914, pp.442-8. André Mellerio, Odilon Redon, 1840- 1916′, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1920, pp.137-56.
41 One such gift is preserved in Paris, one of only three pulls of an early etching Méditation, Μ 207. The etching is inscribed lower left in pencil: ‘offerte à mon ami Mellerio / le 26 juin 1920 / (3 épreuves)’; and further annotated : ‘(á nettoyer) / donnée par Mme Redon / A.M.’; Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; A 11284.
42 Mellerio’s involvement would seem to be indicated from his statement on this publication: ‘En effet, grâce aux soins pieux de Mme Odilon Redon, se trouve joint un choix effectué parmi les manuscrits que l’artiste a laissés … Toutefois, on n’a pas jugé que la publication des manuscrits fut possible dans leur ensemble, trop peu d’années s’étant écoulées encore depuis la mort de Redon. Une sélection a done été effectuée sans que d’ailleur aucune correction – toujours sacrilège envers ceux qui ne sont plus, vint altérer le fond ni la forme.’ See André Mellerio, ‘Trois Peintres écri-vains. Delacroix – Fromentin – Odilon Redon’, La Nouvelle Revue, 15 avril 1923, p. 311. Mellerio’s comment that it was too close to the artist’s death to publish more than a selection, is ominous. The censored portions of Redon’s writings have never been recovered.
43 Mellerio 1923, p. 7.
44 Charles Oulmont, ‘Souvenirs sur Odilon Redon’, Le Gaulois, samedi 22 mai 1920, p. 3.
45 ‘Ne faut-il point rappeler ici qu’envers le cheval, Redon, qui le pratiqua de fait et passionnément dans sa jeunesse, éprouvait et conserva toujours comme artiste, une attirance mêlée de curiosité et d’admiration.’ Mellerio 1923, p. 137.
46 Pégase Captif, 1889, lithograph, Μ 102, 34.0 x 29.3 cm; The Art Institute of Chicago, E. H. Stickney Fund. Le Coursier, 1894, lithograph, Μ 129, 21.7 x 18.5 cm; The Art Institute of Chicago, E. H. Stickney Fund, Acc. 20.1638.
47 ‘LA GRANDE CAPTURE.
A Odilon Redon.
Le poète, pour qui puissantes ont parlé
Les légendes, en a voulu vivre le rêve …
Et dans le brouillard clair du matin qui se lève,
Au pays des chimères il s’en est allé.
Poursuivant sans trêve le long mirage instable,
II a connu, sous les soleils noirs, le péril,
L’affre et le doùte – quand, dans un piège subtil
Enfin il a rêné le Pégase indomptable!
Mais, dans son coeur le hâtif dégôut sourdement
Monte – des vains lauriers et du peuple acclamant
L’inespéré triomphe en la haute aventure …
Et, lent il s’en revient dans les brumes du soir,
Vainqueur hasardeux, craignant encore de voir
Hors de son poing las ruer la grande Capture!
30 décembre 1893.
André MELLERIO.’
Mellerio, Odilon Redon, 1913, p. 155. For Mellerio’s ownership of the two works see above, fn. 24.
48 André Mellerio, ‘La Tentation de Saint- Antoine (3e Série) par Odilon Redon’,
L’Avenir Artistique et Littéraire, 1er août 1896, p. 30.
49 Sketchbook dedicated to René Philipon; The Art Institute of Chicago, RX633 521112. I am grateful to Anselmo Carini for his help in examining this carnet.
50 Andrea Mantegna, Parnassus, c. 1497, canvas, 159 x 192 cm; Musée du Louvre, Paris, Inv. no. 370.
51 Odilon Redon, A Soi-Même, H. Floury, Paris, 1922; reprint edn, Librairie José Corti, Paris, 1979, p. 176.
52 Pegasus and Bellerophon, charcoal with white on buff paper, 53.7 x 35.9 cm; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Robert Lehman Collection. I am grateful to Dr George Szabo, Curator of the Robert Lehman Collection, for assistance with information pertaining to this drawing.
53 L’Aile, 1893, lithograph, Μ 122, 31.6 x 24.5 cm; The Art Institute of Chicago, E. H. Stickney Fund, Inv. no. 20.1707.
54 Thadée Natanson, ‘Exposition Odilon Redon’, La Revue Blanche, mai 1894, p. 470; see also Thadée Natanson, Peints à Leur Tour, Albin Michel, Paris, 1948, p. 244.
55 Cheval Ailé, 1894, lithograph, Μ 127, 15.8 x 11.8 cm; The Art Institute of Chicago, E. H. Stickney Fund.
56 ‘un peu de tout, la dètrempe, l’aoline, l’huile, le pastel même dont j’ai un bon résultat en ce moment-ci, un pastel géant.’ Redon to André Bonger, 17 January 1901; unpublished letter, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam. The special colours are mentioned in a letter to Bonger of 22 December 1904; ‘Confiné, je fis cette sorte d’esquisse assez rapidement. Je la fis avec des couleurs chimiquement spéciales à bonne durée. Depuis, cette peinture ne changea pas d’ailleurs’; unpublished letter, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam.
57 Lettres de Redon, 1923, p. 17.
58 I would like to thank Ann Galbally, Robin Jackson, John Donald, Sonia Dean and Irena Zdanowicz for their kind assistance in the preparation of this article. I wish also to express my gratitude to David Parker, Master of Ormond College, University of Melbourne, for providing an atmosphere of quiet and scholarship in which to work. This article is for Joe Greene.