Saint Sébastien 1910

Odilon Redon made Saint Sébastien with oil paint sometime around 1890. The brushwork is what gets me here - there is a real layering, a kind of visible history of decisions and revisions in the building up of this image. Look at the way the paint is applied around the base of the tree, so thick and textural, almost sculptural. It feels like Redon was really digging into the materiality of paint, pushing it around, letting it bloom into these evocative forms. Then, contrast that with the figure of Saint Sébastien, which is more delicately rendered, almost ethereal. That contrast gives the piece a real push and pull, a tension between the earthly and the divine. It reminds me a little of Gustave Moreau, another Symbolist painter who was interested in exploring the inner life through mythological subjects. But where Moreau's work is often highly detailed and polished, Redon's feels more raw, more intuitive. Ultimately, with a painting like this, Redon invites us to embrace the ambiguity and uncertainty of the human experience.