Artwork
Symbolic Head
Symbolic Head is an unspecified painting by the Impressionist artist Odilon Redon. It dates from 1890 and is held in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
About this work
The collapsing frames make it feel like the picture is caving in on itself, pulling you into her quiet thoughts.
You see a woman’s head in profile, floating inside jagged rectangles. She wears a helmet and holds a green staff.
Redon often painted heads like this—detached from bodies—to show the mind drifting into dreams. The collapsing frames make it feel like the picture is caving in on itself, pulling you into her quiet thoughts.
Look up more works by Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916) to see how he turned dreams into paint.
Overview
Odilon Redon’s painting presents a solitary female profile, isolated from any bodily context and set within a composition of intersecting, diminishing rectangles. The figure wears a helmet and grasps a green staff in her right hand, her head appearing to hover within the geometric confines.
Subject & Meaning
The detached head functions as a visual metaphor for the emancipation of consciousness from physical constraints, suggesting a turn toward inner imagination, reverie, and poetic contemplation. By removing the body, Redon emphasizes the mind’s capacity to wander beyond tangible reality into a realm of dreams.
Technique & Style
Redon frames the profile with a series of collapsing rectangular planes that converge toward the central figure, creating a sense of spatial contraction. The crisp delineation of the helmet and staff contrasts with the softer, atmospheric treatment of the surrounding geometry, highlighting the tension between material form and ethereal thought.
Context
Throughout his career, Redon frequently returned to the motif of isolated heads, employing them to explore the relationship between the visible and the invisible. This work aligns with his broader Symbolist interests, wherein visual symbols serve to evoke psychological states rather than depict literal narratives.
Artist & collection
Artist
Born Bertrand-Jean Redon on 20 April 1840 in Bordeaux, the artist adopted the name Odilon from his mother, Marie-Odile.
