1890 -1916 · Pegasus, Pandora, Cyclops and metamorphoses

Redon does not tell myths scene by scene: he isolates a being, a look or a flight from them and transforms Antiquity into a colorful apparition.

Mythology offers Odilon Redon a repertoire of forms capable of linking dream, desire and nature. A passionate reader, familiar with ancient texts as well as modern reinterpretations, he rarely chooses the most spectacular episode. He prefers a suspended moment: Pegasus held before flight, Pandora motionless near his box, the Cyclops looking at Galatea, a centaur crossing the flowers. After the dark period of the "blacks", color becomes essential. Pastel, tempera and oil superimpose blues, yellows, pinks and greens in halos which do not describe natural light but the interior state of the scene. In The Cyclops, the gigantic eye of Polyphemus emerges behind one flowering mountain while Galatea rests in the foreground; threat, desire and protection remain undecidable. Captive Pegasus opposes the energy of the wing to hindrance. Pandora stands on the threshold of knowledge and catastrophe, surrounded by precious vegetation. The Poppy Centaur unites the hybrid body with an almost musical flowering. Redon also returns to Apollo, Icarus, Venus, Ganymede and the Hydra. These figures do not reconstruct any historical antiquity. They also make visible the psychic permanence of the myth: curiosity, elevation, desire, fear and metamorphosis. These figures do not reconstruct any historical antiquity. They make visible the psychic permanence of the myth: curiosity, elevation, desire, fear and metamorphosis. Mythology thus becomes a free language where a silhouette is enough to open up an entire world. Selection Mythology of Odilon Redon notably compares Pegasus captive and Pandora. His reading favors details.

The myth of Redon explains nothing: it appears in color as an ancient memory that the imagination recognizes before understanding it.