Odilon Redon | Apollo's Chariot, 1905-1916 | The Series

About 1900, French symbolist painter Odilon Redon (1840-1916) abandoned his trademark black charcoal drawings and began avidly experimenting with color.

He also explored new subjects, including the mythological horses of the sun.

They are driven by Apollo, god of light and poetry, or by Phaethon, the boy who foolishly tried to steer the horses and fell to his death.

Odilon Redon | Apollo's Chariot, 1905-1916 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Redon made over thirty depictions of the motif in oil, pastel, and pencil.

In this version, he omitted any indication of a ground plane, so that the horses and charioteer appear to race across a boundless sky. | Source: © Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1878 Redon, in a study of Delacroix, praised that artist's ceiling in the Louvre showing the Chariot of Apollo, and in the same year he noted in his journal his admiration for a painting of Phaethon by Gustave Moreau.

Eugène Delacroix | Apollo Slaying Python, 1850-1851 | Musée du Louvre, Paris

Between 1905 and 1916 Redon devoted a number of oils, pastels and watercolors to the theme of horses of the sun, driven, according to classical mythology, by the god Apollo or his son Phaëthon.

The present pastel is one of the highpoints of the decorative period (1907-10) in Redon's work.

The sun-god Apollo, who was nicknamed "the shining one", is not directly visible himself in the picture but is probably understood to be present in the beam of light on the right-hand edge of the picture.

The reflection of this light on the horses pulling his chariot conveys its intensity.

Odilon Redon | The Chariot of Apollo, 1912 | The Museum of Modern Art, MoMa

Dopo aver visto il dipinto di Delacroix che decora la Galleria di Apollo al Louvre e che raffigura la vittoria di Apollo su Pitone, il tema del carro di Apollo diventò uno dei preferiti del pittore simbolista Odilon Redon, che dedicò a questo soggetto numerosi dipinti e disegni.

Odilon Redon | Apollo's Chariot, 1904-1910