As in a Dream Odilon Redon Edited by With contributions by Margret Stuffmann Markus Bernauer Max Hollein Bernard Dieterle Dario Gamboni Ulrike Goeschen Ursula Harter Stefanie Heraeus Barbara Larson Norbert Miller Ursula Perucchi-Petri Ewald Rathke Marie-Pierre Salé Margret Stuffmann D.A.A.P. LIBRAR) HATJE CANTZCalon Redon, Lithograph for Stéphane Mallarmé, Un Coup de ds, 1898, plate 2 of 3Allies in Art: Odilon Redon, Joris-Karl Huysmans, and Stéphane Mallarmé ‘Markus Bernauer 1 Lettres 1923, p36. 2 On Huysmane’ atten to clam the discovery for inset Se2 Gambon 1995, pp, 72-78 5 See the description of he {alection on pape 168 of ths catalogue 4 Chiago, Amsterdam, London 1996, pp. 1346 5 Delfoor 1982, 9.86, 6 Quoted fom Gambon! 1988, ps7 7 Mile-Ebling 1997, p. 108, 8 esis singuligcment content et fer uss, du ehaptre que me Eongacte Huysmane™Curant 1935, p.2). Its not ently lear to what the letter date ‘August 25,1892, actually seers, 9 Detour 1942, p 9, As Odilon Redon wrote in a letter to André Mellerio in October 1898, the news of Stéphane Mallarmé’s death had shocked and discouraged him: “After Huysmans deserted, | had only him from my own generation . . . he was truly an absolutely reliable ally in art (um alié d'art)” Long before Mallarme, the chief authority of the Symbolist poets and their younger followers in Paris, earned the title of “prince des poétes” following Verlaine’s death in 1896, Redon had come to regard him in retrospect as the most reliable ally of his art. But the letter mentions another loss as well, that of the “deserter” Joris-Karl Huysmans. The alliances between Redon ‘and Huysmans and between Redon and Mallarmé were of two different kinds. Originally active Within the circle of Naturalists associated with Emile Zola, Huysmans blended currents of decadence and aestheticism in his novel A rebours (Against the Grain, 1884) and in the early 1890s turned to occult theories and Catholicism (which explains the “desertion” remark) Redon was indebted to him for his fame (although not for his discovery, which was the achievement of critic Emile Hennequin’), Redon and Mallarmé were personal friends, and Redan was surely grateful for the latters support in clarifying his own aesthetic principles. Jean Des Esseintes, the decadent protagonist in Huysmans’s navel A rebours, isthe last mem= ber of an aristocratic family. Rejecting life and nature, he collects art, including works by Gustave Moreau and Odilon Redon.” His choice of artists—in open rejection of the Impres- sionists, who had been the unrivalled favorites within anti-academic circles for a decade— caused an uproar. The inclusion of several noirs in Des Esseintes’s fictitious collection (of Which several are identifiable as prints shown at the exhibition of 1882‘) established Redon’s ‘name within the Paris bohemian community. “This helped me attract the attention of some of the artists who read him."* The noirs revealed signs of a new aesthetic that had no ties to the Academy, to Realism, or to Impressionism. A remark by the writer Gabriel Sarrazin indicates the impact they made. He compared the artist to Baudelaire and Poe, two poets “whom | admice all the more because they reflected my absolute opposition to the then prevailing current: "Naturalism.~* Hennequin had identified Redon as a counterweight to the Impressionists (whom he regarded as analogous to the Naturalists) as early as 1882 and declared him the head of a new school.’ Huysmans also articulated his poetics in opposition ta Naturalism in A rebours, ‘Along with competing designations, the term Symbolism was soon widely used in reference to the new current in literature and art. Redon was initially pleased at Huysmans’s approval and his insights regarding his prints." Yet there is no mention of approval in his later recollections, He evidently did not par- ticularly like him as @ person.” In 1904 he noted in the margin of an article by Emile Bernard that “Huysmans understood me only in part. | believe that | contributed to his development, but | have kept my feet on the ground. And my works are true [vrais], no matter what anyoneelse may say about them." What was the cause of this turn: ing away from Huysmans that began in the 1890s? Huysmans’s protagonist Des Esseintes regards the noirs as the products of feverish dreams, as images of deli jum (2 description that also evokes associations with fan: tasies induced by hallucinatory drugs). While the decadent, count glorified the illness inherent within them, the critic, Huysmans glorified a preoccupation with the fantastical that, tuined its back on the world, A section of the chapter enti- tled “Le Monstre” in Certains (1889) is devoted to Redon. Redon, wrote Huysmans, had taken up the thread of the “Bestiaires fantastiques” that had been severed since the Renaissance, the most important examples of which were the figures on the cathedral of Notre Dame. The essay ends with, the following comment: “But the great science of Religious ‘Symbolism no longer exists. Art stands alone in the realm of dream in our age, in which the needs of the soul are sulfi~ ciently satisfied by study of the theories of Moritz Wagner and Darwin." After a certain point in time, Redon defended himself against both of Huysmans’s interpretations: His noir, he protested, were not images that emerged in delirium from, the depths of the subconscious, and they were neither “mon= stres” nor demoniacal figures. In the margin of Bernard's article he noted several times that “The supernatural is not, my nature” And he was angered by articles by Maurice Denis (1903) and Francis Jammes (1907) in which the subconscious was identified as the Griving force behind his art.” He had already articulated the principles of his work in positive terms—although in unmistakable opposition to Huysmans—in a letter to Edmond Picard in 1894 (printed in L“Art moderne, Brussels, 1894). He noted that he had made copies in the Louvre but that he had also pursued studies in osteology. A litle comparative work in the museum awakened in me the idea of the similar, though slightly varied structure of all living organisms, depending upon their species, ‘The idea of developing beings from my imagination soon came to me, That merely in volved arbitrarily eliminating, reducing, or developing parts of living things. | prefer not to use the word monster, but rather the notion of the human imagination on the keyboard of osteology, with an almost Christian meaning in the background.” Redon attributed his fantastical pictorial inventions to his observations of nature. As an em- piricist, he claimed to have studied bone structure and compared different living organisms and to have come to the conclusion that they all shared certain similarities. This insight, he wrote, had inspired him to invent new forms through processes of reduction or elaboration or by recombining individual parts (the most remarkable examples are such hybrid figures as the ‘marsh marigolds and the spider with a human head, which hung in Des Esseintes's collection). watercolor, 106 x 72.2 em, Muste du Louvre Paris Department dos Arts grephiques 10 Bacau 1956, 0.1, 9. 284 11 Huysrans [1883 1975, p. 336, 12 “Le surraturl rest pas ma 9.276, 28, anc paraphrased) 283 ‘Quoted from therein in Melero 1913p. 8 aDéilon Redo ouache, 5H x 44 em, Musée des 15 Sandstrm 1955, p. 186. 16 In chapter ceLB (Comment on doit compose un anima tet chimergue”) ofthe famous 4a Vine mote: "Si vous vouler done fave un anima fn parse ere un anal viable et raturl, par exemple, un serpent, prenez pour latte calle on matin, ode quelque sure chien, et donnez-i le your d'un chat, les oes dun ore-ep le mseau un lee, les source 'un on ls cates, des tempos de quelque iu £0, ete col dune tortue ar Léonard de Vine. Nouvelle 231) The chapter coresponds ton 421 of Hench Lodig’s ‘edton-Oion Redon owned 2 copy ofthe so-calles Giffard cedton of 1716 on which the cation of 1796 ted here is based), On the writings of Redon and other Paris Symbol iste relating to Leonardo se ‘As we know, Redon’s interest in natural science and the empirical ‘observation of nature was inspired by his friend Armand Clavaud. In a letter Written to his brother in 1883, he recalled Clavaud's “intellectual, clear- sighted eclecticism,” adding, “I often think of him, and even through him. Redon’s idea of thinking like a scientist and employing sclentific methods in his work once again recalls the pathos of Naturalist aesthetics. (Its leading advocate Emile Zola had described Naturalism not only as maximum pre- Cision in the description of social phenomena but also the introduction of scientific methodology to literature), Its also likely, however, that Redon had Leonardo da Vinci (who for him was one of the most important reference points in the history of art) in mind when he articulated his description of human imaginative activity. In any event, his description refers to a passage in da Vinc’'s writings in which he explains how imaginary beings composed of elements of real beings can bbe made to look natural." The goal is much the same in both cases: to Visualize the improbable, that which is not compatible with experience or reason, by composing it from nature and thereby making it appear probable This idea is expressed in a passage from the Confidences d'artiste: “All my originality, then, consists in giving human life to unlikely creatures according to the laws of probability, while, as much as possible, putting the logic of the visible at the service of the invisible ”” The artist created a second nature by employing and exploiting the possibilities offered by the first. In Des Esseintes’s house, the noirs hang alongside works by Gustave Moreau, most notably the painting of Salomé dancing before Herodes and the famous watercolor entitled Apparition (Fig.) in which the bodiless, floating head of John the Baptist appears to Salomé, Moreau’s image is an interpretation of the biblical story which transcends external reality and conveys a fantastical inner experience. Yet Redon was suspicious of attempts to place painting within a literary framework. In notes written in 1878, he expressed enthusiasm for Moreau’s paintings while hinting at a certain distance. Look in the numberless illustrations of the fable [Phaeton] for someone who has terpreted this one as he did. ... This master has never left, since the very outset, the legends of pagan antiquity, and constantly presents them in a new light. This is why his vision is modern, essentially and deeply modern, in that he concedes, above all with docilty, to the indications of his own nature. Let us admit that the life in those works is an artificial and false life about which nobody cares." Thus Moteau’s modernity was open to question afterall, not because he remained loyal to pa- gan antiquity but because he illustrated myths and legends and allowed them to remain part of painting. Thus Jean-Francois Chevrier quite rightly calls attention to Redon’s criticism of Moreau in a recent article Completed in 1883 (and thus before the publication of A rebours), Redon’s own work entitled Apparition clearly illustrates the difference (fig.). Both the scene and the title Identify it @s a counterpart to Moreau’s watercolor, but the illustrative elements are missing (the oriental architecture, for example, and the halo around the floating head). Also missing are the historical accompanying figures. The action is concentrated on the archaic, statuesquefemale fiqure near the left-hand edge of the picture and the bodiless head, enveloped in rays of light, floats with a mysterious orb in front of a background space immersed in uncertain darkness. The scene no longer clearly supports a literary interpretation. Visual at tells no sto- Fies and develops no ideas, As Redon stated succinctly in 1888, “A thought cannot become a work of art, except in literature, And art borrows nothing from philosophy either” In a remark ‘about art in opposition to Maurice Denis made twenty years later, he wrote, “Its essence is un- known as is the essence of life; and its goal is art itself." Yet Huysmans had regarded Redon’s prints as emanations of the subconscious or a5 “monstres,* as manifestations of the demoniacal, which he had interpreted and incorporated into his cosmos, indirectly making them vehicles of thought even in A rebours. That surely did not sit well with Redon, and the nature of the interpretation must have displeased him as well: “I do not believe that it is the product of a nightmare,” he wrote in the margin of Berard’ article Redon first met Stéphane Mallarmé in the spring of 1885, a meeting presumably arranged by Huysmans.® No reference to the occasion or the date is found in Redon’s anecdotes about his friendship with Mallarmé as recorded by Ary Leblond, although these cite Hennequin rather than Huysmans. Mallarmé had simply visited him one day, for no particular reason, we read, although the obliging enthusiast Hennequin had been trying for some time to guide Mallarmé’s footsteps to Redon’s door. Evidently, Redon’s inner rejection of the “deserter” Huysmans had grown so strong by the time of this account that he was no longer remembered even as a mediator. ‘The occasion for their personal meeting was undoubtedly the dispatch of Homage to Goya to Mallarmé in January 1885, Mallarmé thanked Redon in @ wonderful letter, in which he appropriated the prints, so to speak (cats. 73-78).” During the first six months of 1885 both did work for Edouard Dujardin’s Revue Wagnérienne, the August issue of which featured both Mallarme’s essay on “Richard Wagner, réverie d’un poéte francais” and Redon’s lithograph Srinnilde. Redon soon became a regular visitor to the mardisin the Rue de Rome. (The Tues- day discussions hosted by Mallarmé in his apartment were the mast important literary forum in Paris during the latter half of the 1880s.) The Redons spent the summers of 1888 and 1889 in ‘Samois, not far from Mallarmé’s summer home in Valvins (where Hennequin drowned during a Visit in 1889). Redon and Mallarmé both traveled to Brussels in early 1889, Redon to the “Vil Exposition annuelle des Vingt,” to which he had been invited, and Mallarmé to his “conférence” nn the poet Viller de I'lsle Adam, who had died in August 1889. During the following years, Mallarmé helped arrange exhibitions for his friend, and he appears to have played an instru- mental role in the first retrospective presented by Durand-Ruell in 1894. Mallarmé also hoped that Redon would contribute illustrations fr the separate edition of his magnum opus Un Coup de Dés, but his death on September 9, 1898, put an end to plans for the book edition. Inthe years preceding his friendship with Redon, Mallarmé’s interest in painting was focused primarily on the art of Edouard Manet. Manet had done lithographs for Mallarmé's translation of Poe's The Raven, And the poet's most extensive essay on visual art, “The Im- pressionists and Edouard Manet” of 1876, was devoted above all to Manet, The article was ‘written in the year of the second Impressionist exhibition (April 1876) and appeared in The Art 6 17 Redon 1985 2), p.23.The Following emarks necessary Aisegard al phological hep cis regarding the selection, ‘ampostion, ond dating of & Soi-méme pat ofthe famous commentary was carpeted after 185 and may also have been inspire by conversations sth Malis. 18 Redon 1985 2), pp. 53-54 19 “lls'est denargut de Gustave Motes, en prferan inmite ejiaque de Cort ets brumes, 4e Cheat aux giondes legendes mythologquee™ (antes 2005, p47) 20 Redon 1986 2), p77 21 Redon 1986 2), p93. cmowre de cauchemar (Bacau 1385, vol, 275). 23 Accotdng to Mondor Hus tans asked Malle t range sn introduction to Redon os ‘ari 35 the fl of 1882 (on ox 1950, 450) na leterto Redon of Api 7, 1885, Huys- mans mentioned another smi Fequest by Mallarmé (Lettres. 'Ooion Redon pp. 10D, ee also p. 131) Thus the yer 1883 ted by several authors probably inconect. 24 “Or cestlu (Malarme au, hastd aij toujours Ssoupconné le iat soutien aque ft pouret des a premise eure, ce cer enthousiaste A Hennequi, dav sériuseren guide vrs ce {ue jene pus, tut de mime 25, appeer mon atl Dison done: note loos.” “Mon ami Mallen pat Osan Redan (apes recucls par ry Lebond) in ars 1956, 10.581, p.11 Mallarmé 1965, pp. 2786 (also in Lettres. &Oebion Redon, op. 132f). xOditon Redon, ruonhide lithograph, from Revue Wapnérienn, 1885 25 Malm 1988-2003, v0.2, bp. est 2 Ibi vel. 2 p. 458. 28 Blemont, Les impressionists 10876) 1986, p. 62. 29 Malm 1998-2003, v0.2, AS. 20 hid ‘Monthly Review in the fall af 1876 (only the English version of the first printing has survived; the French manuscript has disappeared). More than simply a description of Impression- ist art, the article outlines the author's own aesthetics of modern painting. Impressionism, from which Manet’s aes- thetics emerged, “is the principle and real movement of con: temporary painting,” Mallarmé wrote, although his qualifica- tion is also worthy of note: “The only one? No; since other great talents have been devoted to illustrate some particular phase or period of bygone art; among these we must class such artists as Moreau, Puvis de Chavannes, etc." Thus, ac: cording to Mallarmé, there were two currents in contempo- rary painting—a modem one, namely Impressionism, and a more traditional one. The painters Mallarmé assigned to the latter category in 1876 were the same ones who were to be regarded as modern by many of his Tuesday evening quests tem years later! The modermity of Manet's painting, he noted, derived precisely from his openness to all historical and lter= ary knowledge and his ability to simplify his thoughts within the context of a new light: “But the chief charm and true characteristic of one of the most singular men of the age is that Manet... seems to ignore all that has been done in art by others, and draws from his own inner consciousness all his effects of simplification, the whole revealed by effects of light incontestably novel.”” At this point, the essay responds—deceptively—ta the debate regarding Impres- sionism among contemporary critics. That same year (1876), the critic Emile Blémont described the goals of the new school as follows: “to render the impression that is evoked in them {the painters] by aspects of reality, with absolute sincerity, without arrangement or attenuation, using a technique that is both simple and generous.” Mallarmé did not see Im- pressionist painting as the mirror of impressions, however. For him, nature and the impressions it evokes are the point of departure for the painter, nothing more. In his discussion of Manet’s The Washing, he speaks of a subject, but only in order to emphasize its insignificance and to reveal the true object of the painting: “It is a deluge with air. Everywhere the luminous and transparent atmosphere struggles with the figures, the dresses, and the foliage, and seems to take to itself some of their substance and solidity The description shows only the luminous, transparent atmosphere, seen in irresolvable conflict with the figures whose contours are flowing, while the atmosphere in turn absorbs something of the substance of the figures. This. interplay, the resolvable character of the conflict, gives it the permanence “[of] an enchanted life conferred by the witchery of art.” The supposed impression is the product nat of the observation of nature but of the act of painting itself. Only the material is drawn from nature. A painting renders an “aspect” (singular), “which only exists by the will of dea”; this “aspect” is “the clear and durable mirror of the painting,” and not the other way around (Mallarmé turns the argumentation of such critics as Blémont around in this case). It contains no recognizable scene from realty; what we see is pure painting, born of the mind, and not a mitror of natureOr of our impressions of an experience of nature (only suggested is the further insight that every impression can be traced to ideas, i.e. that our view of nature comes from our view of art, and not otherwise). The “aspect” in the painting is distinguished by the fact that abun- dance is eliminated and the painted world has congealed into total simplicity. Manet’s art, he ‘writes, is “an original and exact perception which distinguishes for itself the things it perceives with the steadfast gaze of a vision restored to its simplest perfection.” Thus the “creative artistic instinct” is at work in the art of Manet and the (modern) Impressionists, “the delight of having recreated nature touch by touch.”* This newly created nature has nothing in common with reality but this; protected by the frame, things whose connection with external being is not severed, have no place init Contemporary critics tended to regard Puvis de Chavannes, Moreau, and Redon as Symbolists or painters of ideas, in contrast to the Impressionists, Critic Albert Auriey, for in- stance, described Impressionism as “variété du réalisme” in his famous essay “Le symbolisme fen peinture. Paul Gauguin” (1891), a work read by many as @ manifesto.” Redon’s friend and later biographer André Melerio expressed the difference between the two schools in Le ‘mouvement idéaliste en peinture (1896): “... while the realist seeks to depict nature through ‘the immediate sensation it evokes in him, the idealist sees init nothing but the distant point ‘of departure for his art." Mallarmé considered the aesthetic developed in “The Impressionists ‘and Edouard Manet” modern not because the Impressionist painting renders the products of impressions and attitudes but because Manet and his successors created a pure pictorial real- ity that is idea per se. Redon obviously found his place in this aesthetic of modern painting, ‘even though his works do not present a “deluge with air” Some like to classify Redon as a Romantic, but if that is true at all, one must describe his art from Mallarmé’s standpoint as Romanticism tempered by the modern aesthetic of Impressionism. In any event, this might Well explain the alliance between Mallarmé and Redon ~ following the poet's alliance with the very different Manet. Nature as the starting point is also a key aspect of Redon's theory of modern art, indeed of his own art. Yet nature has a dual meaning in this theary, On the one hand, the artist must follow his own nature. With respect to Moreau, for example, Redon saw a direct relation- ship between the modernity of his vision and the contention that he “concedes, above all with dotility, to the indications of his own nature”* And Redon repeatedly said much the same of himself. A soi-méme begins with the statement that he had created art according to himself (selon moi”).* His remark elsewhere that he had progressed primarily through his own efforts because he had found schooling dissatisfying” reveals his rejection of the Academy as an ed- Uucational institution and of the academic art scene with its salons and academic art as his en- emy. His concept of nature as the starting point of art may be understood as criticism of aca~ demic painting and its hierarchy of genres, in which the history painting, inspired by literature and based upon a story took precedence. In this view of modem art, nature takes the place of 31 bid, vol 2, p. 460" 3 Ibid, vol. 2,» 459, 33 Auer 1891, p. 157 In “The Impressionists and Edouard Manet,” the confrontation with contemporary 34 Melero 1856, p 9 5 fen 1306) 9, academic artis concerned with the question of art ina modern republic. Yet Mallarmé saw the 3 Neen 1862p. (historical) literature source of painting in the artist alone, not in academic rules or in ledge of history - 37 Redon 1886 2,5. 17. Of painting in the artist alone, not in academic rul a knowledge of history — 2 Redon 1986 @).p.17. although he does not write of the nature of the artist but of “his own inner consciousness." pasa, na0 a 6 Ibid vol 2 . 467, Ibid vl. 2.456 Redon 1986 (2), pp. 67-68. Redon 1985 2, p23. Redon 1985 2, pp. 134-135 Redon 1985 2, p84 Mallee 1986-2003, vol. 2, 488. Redon 1986 2), 9.77. (Quoted from Hotter 1965, 28 in the orginal “Vetie Fide une forme sense). Redon 1986 2), p. 22 Redon 1986 2), p 84 The corollary to that is found in the modern viewer, who no longer seeks to glean the mean- ing of a work of art through the elitist erudition of others but wants to experience it person- ally: “But today the multitude demands to see with its own eyes.” The “simplification” of the new art evolves from these two prerequisites—the transformation of nature into a painting, whose frame separates it from its starting point, nature. What appears as nature is the gift of the painter, especially where the unpaintable, the alr, the atmosphere is “obtained by lightness (or heaviness of touch, or by the regulation of tone. "Neither Mallarmé nor Redon equated the logic of pictorial order with the logic of the Visible world but saw it instead as the product of an autonomous artistic vision, This vision could come from scientific interests or even from an “idée littérare,” as we read in a strangely contra- dictory note written in 1879 that may have been directed against Impressionism (the term does not refer to a narrative element of to one that can be expressed in words; “art uniquement pic~ toresque” represents a kind of painting that is borne by ideas) but is not depleted by them.” Redon vehemently resisted the contention that his nairs were inspited by observations under the microscope. Yet Impressionism also struck him—unlike Mallarmé—as conventional, a5 2 style that falls victim to observation. In 1880, he noted that the Impressionists only seek to disengage color or light from the last bonds of classical painting, Clas sical themselves .. . they hope to be able to place the essence of painting on the tue field of tone taken for its own sake. ... They attain, without opposing surfaces, without organizing planes, a vibration of tone seen by the juxtaposition.* Thus the Impressionists lack vision, because they rely on observation. This vision, obviously a spiritual element in Redon’s view but not defined more precisely, blends with graphic or painterly resources and with the sense of pictorial structure: a constructive aspect in his art which requites that the artist “be conscious each moment of its gestation.“ Unconscious mo- tives and dreams have no more influence on the artist’s vision than literature. What Mallarmé attributed to Manet was equally important to Redon: the insistence that while working, the artist's “personal feeling, his peculiar tastes, are for the time absorbed, ignored, or set aside for the enjoyment of his personal life" Redon claimed to have created fictions in his works,© pure artistic inventions. These fictions are not manifestations of an idea that exists apart from them (“clothing the idea in a sensitive form” was Jean Moreau’s oft-cited matto of Symbolism, as expressed in Le Figaro in 1886"), but rather the idea itself. They are not interpretable (it~ erarily, biographically, etc.). “My drawings inspire and do not define themselves. They deter mine nothing, They place us just as music does in the ambiguous world of the indetermi- nate." They are determined instead by the will to create moments of indeterminacy, uncertainty, and ambiguity, In a note written in 1902, we read, “the meaning of mystery [le sens du mystére] is to be always in ambiguity, with double, triple aspects; in the hints of as- pect (images in images), forms which will be, or which become according to the state of mind of the beholder:"* Mystery is not something esoteric or occult but rather a purely aesthetic enigma, created deliberately from elements of nature. Mallarmé may have talked about le sens du mystére at one of his mardis. We know from an interview with Jules Huret that he postulated an opposition between clarity of meaning (and interpretability) and ambiguity similar to that expressed by Redon with reference ta the poets of his generation and the older ones, the Parnassiens. 19I think itis important instead that only allusion is Present, The contemplation of objects, the image that flutters forth from the dreams they conjure, \ ate the song, In contrast, the Parnassiens grasp the t thing 2 @ whole and expose it; in doing so, they lack mystery; they take away from the spirits the Precious joy of believing that they were creating, ‘To name an object is to eliminate three-fourths of \ the joy of experiencing a poem, which consists in guessing gradually. Suggesting the thing, that is the dream. Its the perfect use of this mystery that creates the symbol. Creating an object step by step in order to show a condition of the soul, or con- versely selecting an object in order to create a con- dition of the soul from it, requires a sequence of decodings.” The symbol isthe product of the perfect handling of mystery the creation of concealed relationships, products of a con: struction, involves the reader, and in art the viewer, whom it stimulates to find a solution, a solution which, in Mallarmé’s, view, of course—as a valid solution of a puzzle—can never be found (and to this extent Huret’s nate is somewhat mis- leading). The modem principle of the involvement of the reader or viewer in the creative process has its corollary in Redon’s concept of “art suggest: “As for me, I believe | have made an art that is expressive, suggestive, undetermined. An art. that suggests is the irradiation of divine plastic elements brought together, combined in arder to call forth dreams that it illumi- rates, exalts and incites to thought" Thus in Redon’s view, his noirs also defy interpretation because they do nat contain their idea in themselves alone but develop it in interaction with the viewer. Yet apart from the similarities between Mallarmé’ aesthetic of modem painting developed from the framework of Impressionism and Redon’s theoretical musings on his own works and fon a modern, non-Impressionist art, there are also differences, In his essay on Manet, Mallarmé had proclaimed Impressionism as the art of the republic, comparing paintings of Gods and heroes to a past in which the world was ruled by kings. His article for Revue wag- ‘nérienne in 1885 (“Richard Wagner, réverie d'un poste francais") does not focus on the poetic or artistic possibilities offered by Wagner's music, neither on “poésie wagnérienne” or on “peinture wagnérienne.” What he explores here are aesthetic effects, dreams of a new art in the republic, pethaps of art for the masses, for the people, Thoughts about the status Of various forms of art (or media, as one might say today) are crucial to Mallarmé’s aesthetic. ‘They are missing entirely in Redon’s theories. Their only joint project was undertaken during the last years of theit friendship: the lithographs for Mallarmé’s last great work, the poem entitled Un Coup de Dés jamais n‘abolira 10 Dailon Reson, Lithograph for Stéphane Mallarmé, Un Coup te 81 « és, 1898, plate 1 of 3 Stéphane Mallar “Sur Tévolution iterate Engutte els Huser)” 1881, in Malrmé 1986-2003, val 2, p. 6894 Redon 1985 2), 9. 96 Melero 1913, nos. 186-88, but oy without reterence to the onginal intended pur- pose and with a questionable Aescrption. On the ley proofs of Coup de Des and Redon’ lithographs see Mian, 1973, 9p. 39-56. See aso Cohn 1986, Ch On Rodan’ lustations see Celier 1977p. 278-87 ‘Malem 1998-2008, vl. 1 p33) Lets. 8 Odilon de Redon, pias Bacou 1956, vo. 1 p. 96‘lon Redon, Lithograph for ‘Stephane Mallar, Un Coup dd des 1898, pate 3 of 3 Je Hasard published in Cosmopotis in 1897. Mallarmé and Ambroise Vollard planned a typographic edition on eleven double pages, which, owing to Mallarmé’s death, was never realized. Redon is believed to have done four lithographs, of which three have survived (figs. pp. 112, 120, 121). The ‘white space of the print plays an important role in the ab- stract illustrated poem, as is indicated in the foreword to the magazine version: “The ‘white’ spaces do indeed gain impor- tance, attracting notice immediately; the verse demands them as enveloping silence Accordingly, Vollard (perhaps with Manet’s prints for The Raven in mind) suggested to Redon, surely in the spirit of Mallarmé: “In this regard, | think it would be important to the success of the work that the illustrations be in black [en noi” But the fact that Redon had long since bequn working in color was probably not the cause of the failure of this project. Un Coup de dés not only abandons classical verse form, it also does away with the conventional pattern of reading, as the poem (and this explains the double-page presentation) can be readin differ~ ent directions. The a prior sense context of the poem, which precedes reading and is thus independent of it, is aban~ doned. There are no coherent lyrical images. Redon later complained in Coup de dés of the degree of abstraction, which made illustration impossible: “Consider that there was nota single word that was not abstract! ... Ah! If he had only spoken of a chair or a demon!” Redon evidently no longer ‘wanted to follow Mallarmé's lead in his revolutionary late oeuwte m1