Abstract
In this thesis, I consider how Odilon Redon symbolized the theme of evil in many of his black and white prints. I examine Redon’s compilation of these prints into portfolios in dialogue with literary interpretations of evil in Charles Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil, Gustave Flaubert’s Temptation of Saint Anthony, and the New Testament Book of Revelation. I consider word and image interaction in Redon’s engagement of these traditional and contemporary literary sources. I demonstrate that Redon’s prints participated in Symbolist discourses, using traditional myths and symbols in new and evocative ways. Further, I show that Redon’s prints, like the Symbolist texts with which they were in dialogue, participated in wider cultural discourses informed by traditional and contemporary theories of evolution and degeneration. I argue that the symbolism in these prints aligns with Redon’s writings on art and spirituality, representing evil as a duality and part of a dialectical process of enlightenment. Redon’s writing represented evil as false morality and unreflective adherence to societal norms in decadent society. Redon’s portfolios depicted evil and alienation in bourgeois culture, using light and dark symbolism and the tropes of the Devil, the serpent, and the skeleton to connect with canonical myths while symbolizing resistance to dogma and contemporary materialism. I demonstrate that Redon symbolized evil in these prints, in alignment with his writings, as an element to be overcome in a dialectical process of spiritual growth.
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