University of Iowa Iowa Research Online Theses and Dissertations Fall 2013 Decoration and symbolism in the late works of Odilon Redon Abigail Eileen Yoder University of Iowa Copyright © 2013 Abigail Eileen Yoder This dissertation is available at Iowa Research Online: https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2300 Recommended Citation Yoder, Abigail Eileen. "Decoration and symbolism in the late works of Odilon Redon." PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) thesis, University of Iowa, 2013. https://doi.org/10.17077/etd.7cj02aye Follow this and additional works at:https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd Part of theHistory of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons DECORATION AND SYMBOLISM IN THE LATE WORKS OF ODILON REDON by Abigail Eileen Yoder A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Art History in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa December 2013 Thesis Supervisor: Professor Dorothy Johnson Copyright by ABIGAIL EILEEN YODER 2013 All Rights Reserved Graduate College The University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL _______________________ PH.D. THESIS _______________ This is to certify that the Ph.D. thesis of Abigail Eileen Yoder has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Art History at the December 2013 graduation. Thesis Committee: ___________________________________ Dorothy Johnson, Thesis Supervisor ___________________________________ Wallace Tomasini ___________________________________ Robert Rorex ___________________________________ John Beldon Scott ___________________________________ Wendelin Guentner To my family ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank a number of people who helped contribute to the completion of this dissertation. First and foremost, I wish to thank my dissertation adviser and mentor, Professor Dorothy Johnson, for her kind support throughout this process. Dr. Johnson has continuously encouraged me during my research and writing, even when I became discouraged. Her guidance has not only shaped this dissertation, but also has helped me to become more confident in my scholarship in general. I am truly grateful for her support and encouragement. I would also like to thank my other professors and committee members. Professor Wallace Tomasini has provided invaluable insight, not only on this dissertation but also throughout my graduate career. I am especially grateful for his support and assistance as my graduate adviser. Professor Robert Rorex provided some of the impetus for this project based on his comments on my Master’s thesis, so I am exceedingly grateful for that, and for his kindness and humor throughout my time as a graduate student. I wish to thank Professor John Beldon Scott for his kind support for my dissertation project as well as for me as a graduate student. Professor Wendelin Guentner provided valuable insights on my project from the beginning and I am thankful for her assistance as well. I also wish to thank my other professors for their guidance and support throughout this process, especially Professor Julie Hochstrasser for being a willing sounding board for my thoughts while I was researching. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge my undergraduate adviser, Professor Gregory Gilbert at Knox College. Professor Gilbert’s enthusiasm in my first art history class is what led me to choose the major, and I have not looked back since. It was in Professor Gilbert’s nineteenth-century art class that I first discovered my love for Odilon Redon, and so I am grateful that he set me on this path. My research for this topic would not have been possible if not for the generous funding I received from the University of Iowa School of Art and Art History. I wish to iii thank everyone on the fellowship committee who supported me and gave me the opportunity to pursue my research in France. I also received a considerable amount of financial support from the University of Iowa Graduate College, including a T. Anne Cleary International Dissertation Research Fellowship, which helped fund my first research trip to Paris, as well as a summer fellowship that allowed me to travel to Narbonne, France in 2011 for a rare opportunity to view Redon’s paintings at the Abbaye de Fontfroide. That trip was invaluable to my research and I am incredibly grateful to the Graduate College for providing me the opportunity to go. While in Paris, I received the support of many people and I wish to thank them here. Primarily, I would like to thank Stéphane Guégan and Marie-Pierre Salé at the Musée d’Orsay for pointing me in the right direction to start my research. The staff in the Centre de documentation at Orsay was also extremely helpful during my time there. I would also like to thank Valérie Sueur-Hermel and the staff at the Bibliothèque Nationale for assisting me with my research there. I wish to thank the staff at the Bibliothèque des Arts Décoratifs for their assistance as well. I am grateful for the documents provided to me by Liliane Lerable from the archives at Mobilier National & Manufactures Nationales des Gobelins. Throughout my dissertation process, my friends and family have been a constant source of love, support, and kindness. I wish to thank a number of people, including Ruben, Donna, and Christopher Carrillo, Shannon Cody, Betsey Kosier, Alice Phillips, Sue and Dwight Smith, Amanda Strasik, and Hal and Anita Yeager. During my research in France and my subsequent move to St. Louis, Missouri, Becky Johnson provided much support and encouragement, as well as a few care packages that were greatly appreciated. Above all, I wish to thank my dear friend and colleague Karissa Bushman. Karissa has been a constant source of support throughout this process, and I cannot thank her enough for her wisdom and humor over the last several years. iv I wish to thank my parents, Doug and Linda Yoder, and my brother Jeff for everything they have done for me during my research and writing process. They have provided constant encouragement, listening to me voice my excitement over the project as well as vent my frustrations, and have never been anything less than fully supportive. Finally, I thank my husband, Doug Smith, who has been nothing short of amazing throughout this arduous process. He has been with me every step of the way, even through troubled times, supporting me, helping me, and encouraging me as I slowly made my way towards the end of this project. He has been my everything, and I am eternally grateful. v ABSTRACT From approximately 1900 until 1914, Odilon Redon worked almost exclusively on decorative projects, both privately and publicly commissioned. Additionally, he created numerous uncomissioned decorative works – highly ornamental paintings with decorative subject matter that were conceived of by the artist himself as decorations. Yet despite the fact that decorative works made up a significant portion of Redon’s late oeuvre, he is rarely considered as a major figure within the decorative arts movement at the turn of the century, unlike his contemporaries Paul Gauguin and the Nabis. His close involvement with these artists, as well as his affiliation with a number of the same important critics, makes his exclusion from discussion of the decorative revival all the more surprising. There has been very little scholarship on Redon’s decorative works that consider them in in relation to the international decorative movement. Nevertheless, his late works actively engaged with the avant-garde aesthetic theories of the time. My dissertation will place Redon in the context of the decorative and Symbolist art movements by examining the profusion of decorative projects with which he was involved during the last decades of his career. By considering important themes within these movements, like elevation of craft arts, the encouragement of floral designs, the revival of religious and mythological subject matter, and principles regarding the unification of the arts, I argue that Redon warrants consideration as a peintre-décorateur in fin-de-siècle France. My first chapter introduces the idea of the decorative revival in the nineteenth century, and considers the way the definition of the term “decorative” evolved during the period. I also present the historiography of Redon scholarship, as it relates to his decorative works. The second chapter examines the historical background of the decorative and Symbolist movements in the nineteenth century. I focus first on the pan- European decorative revival, especially in England and Belgium, then examine how this vi influenced French art. The Symbolist artistic movement developed simultaneously, and as such, I will examine the ways in which the two movements overlapped. Finally, I consider how Redon’s artistic development was affected in this aesthetic climate. Subsequent chapters examine specific themes in Redon’s decorative oeuvre, and how these related to ideas and undercurrents in the general decorative and Symbolist art movements. Chapter three focuses on flowers and nature as decoration, exploring the increase of floral imagery in both decoration and Symbolist painting, and how Redon adapted his own artistic language from these influences. Chapter four examines the revival of traditional imagery from religious and mythological subjects, as well as occultist themes, and explores the way Redon used his decorative style to create new symbolic meanings for these themes. Chapter five focuses on Redon’s murals at the Abbaye de Fontfroide, in which I argue that they represent a modern Gesamtkunstwerk. My final chapter underscores Redon’s place within the decorative and Symbolist movements and examines the influence he exerted on his contemporaries through his use of the decorative arts. vii