Sleep (The Shulamite)
Sheet: 6 × 6 1/2 inches (15.24 × 16.51 cm)
University of Kansas Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS, 1952.
Odilon Redon was considered in his day to be one of the leading members of the Symbolists, a group that valued emotion and imagination over the direct observation of nature. Redon created dream worlds populated with fantastical creatures or figures drawn from Greek mythology or the Bible. Redon depicts the anonymous woman referred to as a Shulamite from the Song of Songs of Solomon, a mystical book in the Old Testament.
Using sparse lines, Redon conveys the serene and cryptic nature of the Shulamite, whose name means "peaceful one" in Hebrew. As in many of his other works, Redon depicts his subject asleep to evoke the mysteries of the unconscious mind and to further enhance the dream-like quality of these images.
With the Art Institute of Chicago by April 1, 1932 [1];
Purchased from the Art Institute of Chicago by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1932.
NOTES:
[1] Information provided by Susanna Hedbloom, Natasha Derrickson, Anna Simonovic, and Darrell Green of the Art Institute of Chicago.André Mellerio, Odilon Redon (New York: Da Capo Press, 1968), no. 172.
George L. McKenna, Prints, 1460-1995 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 298, (repro.), as Le sommeil (Sleep).
