La Coupe de Devenir

A sketch of a painting by Odilon Redon.

I went to London to spend the day with my brother and visit the "Impressionists on Paper" exhibition at the Royal Academy. There were relatively few fully worked-up pieces, but it was interesting to see the range of techniques and media up close, especially in the context of the artistic innovation of the period.

An interesting example was a painting of Ophelia with flowers, by Odilon Redon. The guide mentioned that the picture was started as a still life of a vase, which he then rotated and added the girl's face. Only really obvious when you tilt your head to the horizontal and see the head nestled in the outline of the vase!