Primitive Being

Download1686 × 2050 px View on a wall Edit

Artist: Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916)
Medium: Various charcoals and black chalk, with stumping, wiping, and erasing, fixed, on cream wove paper
Size: 44.5 × 36.9 cm (17 9/16 × 14 9/16 in.)
Museum: Art Institute of Chicago
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

Odilon Redon himself described this drawing as representing “a primitive being contemplating the head of a giant.” During Redon’s life, new ideas of evolution provoked a fascination with other societies that were unmediated by industrialization and which Europeans viewed as “primitive” and closer to the natural world. Redon’s figures relate to these racially insensitive romanticized stereotypes, while also revealing other windows of creative thought. Although the work evokes the biblical story of David and Goliath, its mood is mysterious and reflective rather than triumphant.

This is one of Redon’s celebrated black-and-white works he called “noirs” (blacks), which were strange, often disturbing images derived from the subconscious mind or dream world. In them, the artist deftly applied velvety charcoal and black chalk using a repertory of techniques—wiping, rubbing, erasing—to bring out a rich variety of tonal, chromatic, and textural effects.

Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0.