These are surreal lithographs done a generation before Surrealism. Odilon Redon was a throw-away kid, afflicted with epilepsy at a time when this was considered insanity, and deeply stigmatized. Hidden in a house in the country, he grew up largely alone and melancholy. He made dreamlike visionary art all his life, from nightmarish early charcoal drawings of gigantic staring eyes and spiders with grins, to joyful, colorful, mythical pastels and paintings as he matured.

In Dreams (Dans la Rêve) is early; an album of ten lithographs. Here are four examples (the other six show more floating, disembodied heads like #6, Gnome).

In Dreams 5: The Gambler [Le Joueur]	In Dreams: 6: Gnome
In Dreams: 7: Felineness [Felinerie]	In Dreams: 8: Vision

SOURCE: Odilon Redon: Prince of Dreams by the Art Institute of Chicago, 1994; bio from prologue, images pp.122-3.

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