Exploring the mysteries of the subconscious The grandfather of surrealism nbsp quotMy drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined.quot mdashRedon In reaction to the quotnarrow-mindednessquot of his fellow artists, symbolist painter Odilon Redon - sought to open the door on the invisible. Art, according to the theories of the symbolist movement, should quotadd to human beauty the nimbus of thought.quot In his studio, Redon would dedicate his energies, like an alchemist, to the creation of his quotblack pictures,quot those barely tangible charcoal drawings teeming with fantasy figures. Gradually, color took hold in his works and Redon applied it with a boldness and imagination that heralded the exprerimental approach of modernism and surrealism.
