Vase D’anémones 

Curator: This pastel drawing presents a vibrant bouquet, entitled "Vase D’anémones," attributed to Odilon Redon. The eye is immediately drawn to the jewel-toned anemones. Editor: It feels so dreamy! The texture of the pastel is really evident, lending a soft, almost ethereal quality to the whole scene. You can practically feel the powdery pigments. Curator: Precisely. Redon’s technique is central to its mood, don't you think? It allows for these soft gradations of color and a real sense of immediacy in its creation. The choice of pastel over oil, for instance, implies something about speed, but also accessibility. Consider the labor that would go into preparing an oil painting! This medium implies something about access to the work. Editor: True. And think about the tradition of flower painting, too. Where does it fit in terms of the art market and broader societal tastes at the time? Flower painting offered both female and male artists more financial opportunity due to middle class home decoration interest in floral imagery. Curator: An excellent point! Flowers also occupy an ambiguous place in the artistic hierarchy as many associated flowers with decorative arts, with craft—categories long feminized and seen as less important in terms of painting, or more broadly, in high art. Editor: It's intriguing how he pushes against that a little with these vibrant and bold colors. What do you suppose Redon would have had to go through to get these pastel pigments? I wonder if the availability of color impacted Redon’s interest in the image? The bright jewel-like tones. Where were they sourced? What was their original purpose and usage outside the fine art market? Curator: Sourcing pigment touches on art-making and materiality that so many disregard. Beyond sourcing we must question the accessibility to tools, too, to proper paper. That so few flower images exist compared to other subjects may simply touch on access! These beautiful pastels could signal broader democratization of artistic materials and subjects. Editor: I hadn't considered it quite that way. This new look at sourcing and materiality, labor and context really brings a whole new dimension to "Vase d’anémones"! Curator: Absolutely! It’s never just about what we see, but about how it came to be.