Rider on the Beach with Two Ships

Odilon Redon was of the same generation as many of the Impressionists but he regarded their art as only an extreme form of naturalism and considered them to be slaves of the visual world. His own world was mystical and imaginative and for almost 20 years he even rejected colour and created his dreamlike images in charcoal and monochrome prints. In his later years he returned to a celebratory use of colour.Between 1900 and 1908 he produced a number of pictures with boats and this enigmatic image probably dates from that time. He said that he strove to capture the mystery beyond mere realism where the spirit is raised 'into the realms of mystery, into the anxiety of the unresolved, and into the delicious world of uncertainty'.