The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Shows "Two Masters of Fantasy: Bresdin & Redon"

Written by Cesar Goodling Wednesday, 24 August 2011 00:07

Boston, MA.- The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) is proud to present "Two Masters of Fantasy: Bresdin and Redon", on view at the museum until January 16th 2012. The exhibition presents 43 works — 22 by teacher Rodolphe Bresdin (1822–1885) and 21 by his student Odilon Redon (1840–1916), assembled primarily from the Museum’s holdings, with select loans from private collectors.  Included are black and white lithographs, etchings, and charcoal drawings, as well as a watercolor and pastel.  A highlight of the exhibition in the Clementine Brown Gallery is the MFA’s recent acquisition, the dramatic drawing "Tears (Les Pleurs)" by Odilon Redon. Two Masters of Fantasy was organized Rodolphe Bresdin, the eccentric French artist, was a self-taught printmaker and draughtsman who was inspired by early 19th century Romantic book illustration.

Although Bresdin, an “artist’s artist,” received modest recognition in his lifetime, he had a strong influence on his pupil Odilon Redon, the French artist who began his studies with the master in 1865. Bresdin’s prints and drawings are distinctive for their dense imagery of the natural world, executed in vibrant black and white. His claustrophobic landscapes are jungle-like, threatening to overwhelm those who enter. While most of his works are small (almost miniature) in scale, Bresdin’s masterpiece "The Good Samaritan" (1861) is one of his larger prints, measuring approximately 22" by 17". It depicts an incident in which an Algerian came to the aid of a Christian victim during the civil war of 1860 in Syria, reflecting the parable about the Good Samaritan. Also on view in "Two Masters of Fantasy" are  the highly detailed drawing "Mountain Landscape with Army in a Rocky Gorge" (1865) and the etching "Branches" (about 1880), which reflect Bresdin’s interest in the untamed wilderness. In addition, a case in the exhibition displays two versions of "The Bather and Time" (1856), an image of a woman bather observed by a skeleton holding a scythe and hourglass, drawn in black ink on tracing paper, and its corresponding lithograph made the following year. Nearby, a pedestal features a pairing of Bresdin’s etching "Rocky Landscape" (1880), and the copper plate that it was printed from (a plate from an earlier work that he scraped down and reused because of his poverty.

Drawing inspiration from Bresdin in both imagery and technique, Rendon’s early landscape Fear (1866) evokes “The Erl-King,” the heartbreaking poem by Goethe about a father riding on horseback whose young child dies in his arms. Redon’s subsequent, more surreal works led him to become a founding father of modern art and one of the greatest figures of the Symbolist movement (which emphasized literary themes and dreamlike personal visions).  The artist’s hallucinatory images of the subconscious and the dream world also later influenced the Surrealists in the 1930s and many contemporary artists. In the 1870s, Redon began his renowned series of dark and velvety charcoal fantasies—noirs (blacks). Included among them is the MFA’s acquisition, Tears (Les Pleurs), a major charcoal drawing of a floating head that weeps into the “sea of tears” below. Measuring approximately 17 x 14 inches, it is one of the works that helped to establish Redon as a master of blackness—in subject, tone, and medium. Several of his haunting fantasy heads are on view in the exhibition, such as "Parsifal" (1892), "Lumière" (Light) (1893), "La Bretonne" (1895), and "Head of a Child with Flowers" (1897).

Also included in the exhibition is "Le Liseur" (The Reader) (1892), a touching lithograph of Redon’s master and friend, Bresdin, who had died seven years prior. This imaginary portrait of the aged artist, which pays tribute to the etchings of Rembrandt, shows him seated in a darkened room, his face illuminated by light from a nearby window. Some works by Redon are wildly inventive, such as the representation of a Cyclops he created in 1883 as part of his Origins series, which explored evolutionary theory as propounded by Charles Darwin’s groundbreaking 'The Origin of Species' (1859).  Others plumb the subconscious, such as "The eye, like a strange balloon" (1882), a fanciful vision of a floating eyeball drifting up in the air like a hot-air balloon.  It was inspired by Charles Baudelaire’s French translations of the works of Edgar Allen Poe, the American writer of fantasy and the macabre who was admired by the Symbolists. Toward the end of the 19th century, Redon moved away from the dark depths of his noirs, returning to color and light. Some of these later works are luminous, iridescent pastels with mythological themes, including "Centaur" (1895–1900), which is on view in the exhibition.  It is one of three color pieces highlighted in 'Two Masters of Fantasy'. Another is "Saint Sebastian" (1910–15), part of a series of watercolors depicting the Christian martyr that Redon made late in his career.

The original MFA opened its doors to the public on July 4, 1876, the nation's centennial. Built in Copley Square, the MFA was then home to 5,600 works of art. Over the next several years, the collection and number of visitors grew exponentially, and in 1909 the Museum moved to its current home on Huntington Avenue. Today the MFA is one of the most comprehensive art museums in the world; the collection encompasses nearly 450,000 works of art. We welcome more than one million visitors each year to experience art from ancient Egyptian to contemporary, special exhibitions, and innovative educational programs. November 2010 marked the opening of The New MFA. Designed by the world-renowned Foster and Partners architects, The New MFA comprises a new wing for Art of the Americas; renovated art of Europe galleries; improved conservation and education facilities; The Linde Family Wing devoted entirely to contemporary art; and a new, larger public space—the Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Family Courtyard. Established in 1876, The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is one of the oldest and most distinguished art schools in the United States. Through an affiliation with Tufts University established in 1945, the SMFA offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs, providing students with a full range of academic resources. Some highlights of the MFA's collection include, Egyptian artifacts, a major collections of French impressionist and post-impressionist works including Paul Gauguin's "Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?" as well as works by Manet, Renoir, Degas, Monet, Van Gogh, Cézanne and many others. The 18th and 19th century American art collection includes many works by John Singleton Copley, Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent. Visit  the museum's website at ... www.mfa.org

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