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Lot Essay
Ophelia is William Shakespeare's heroine in his renowned play Hamlet, written around 1600-1601. One of its most famous quotes comes from Act IV, Scene 7, when Queen Gertrude announces Ophelia's death. Having been cruelly rebuffed by her lover Hamlet and following her father's murder, the innocent Ophelia is driven half out of her mind and accidentally drowns by falling from a willow-tree.
Redon chose to turn Shakespeare's Ophelia into one of his many mythological heroines, her death appearing in as many as twelve of his works (Wildenstein, vol. II, nos. 891-907), many of which incorporate extravagant floral displays, embellishing the image of Shakespeare's "fantastic garlands." Eugène Delacroix worked on his sequence of sixteen Hamlet lithographs between 1835 and 1859, including one that depicted the death of Ophelia, dated 1843. He first painted this subject in 1838, and then four more times by 1853. Sir John Everett Millais painted his celebrated Ophelia (Tate Gallery, London) in 1852, and the theme was later taken up by many Pre-Raphaelite painters.
Unlike his predecessors, Delacroix and Millais, who painted Ophelia's death showing her full body, Redon focuses on the young girl's face by portraying her half-bust. Redon concentrates on the elusive and immaterial split second between life and death. The blue and mauve pigments, the flowers that crown her head and the figure's quiet beauty in Redon's Ophélie suggest a hint of life, yet the downward motion of the body, arms out as the figure's final movement and her sealed eyes, betray death's victory. In the present painting, Redon portrays an Ophelia who seemingly battles death, clothed in armor and a cape flowing out behind her. But Ophelia's tragic transition from life to death is implied by suspending time around her and by plunging the heroine in a dreamy and almost surreal atmosphere, through his suggestive brushstrokes and soft colors.
Redon chose to turn Shakespeare's Ophelia into one of his many mythological heroines, her death appearing in as many as twelve of his works (Wildenstein, vol. II, nos. 891-907), many of which incorporate extravagant floral displays, embellishing the image of Shakespeare's "fantastic garlands." Eugène Delacroix worked on his sequence of sixteen Hamlet lithographs between 1835 and 1859, including one that depicted the death of Ophelia, dated 1843. He first painted this subject in 1838, and then four more times by 1853. Sir John Everett Millais painted his celebrated Ophelia (Tate Gallery, London) in 1852, and the theme was later taken up by many Pre-Raphaelite painters.
Unlike his predecessors, Delacroix and Millais, who painted Ophelia's death showing her full body, Redon focuses on the young girl's face by portraying her half-bust. Redon concentrates on the elusive and immaterial split second between life and death. The blue and mauve pigments, the flowers that crown her head and the figure's quiet beauty in Redon's Ophélie suggest a hint of life, yet the downward motion of the body, arms out as the figure's final movement and her sealed eyes, betray death's victory. In the present painting, Redon portrays an Ophelia who seemingly battles death, clothed in armor and a cape flowing out behind her. But Ophelia's tragic transition from life to death is implied by suspending time around her and by plunging the heroine in a dreamy and almost surreal atmosphere, through his suggestive brushstrokes and soft colors.