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Fear

A work made of etching on cream laid paper.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A work made of etching on cream laid paper.

Date:

1865

Artist:

Odilon Redon
French, 1840-1916

About this artwork

Odilon Redon’s fantastically dark sensibility is in full evidence in Fear. A rider protecting a child in his arms gallops past desolate plunging ravines, driven by an unseen threat. Redon’s dramatic etching may refer to the Elfking (Der Erlkönig), a tragic 1782 poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In that work, a father tries to reassure his anxious, dangerously ill son that the hostile elements that beset them are not elves trying to spirit him away. Though the child dies, the poem remains open to interpretation. Indeed, Redon’s forbidding landscape strongly suggests the presence of supernatural forces only the doomed son could sense.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Prints and Drawings

Artist

Odilon Redon

Title

Fear

Place

France (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1865

Medium

Etching on cream laid paper

Dimensions

110 × 200 mm (image) 140 × 222 mm (plate); 270 × 358 mm (sheet)

Credit Line

The Stickney Collection

Reference Number

1920.1516

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/106581/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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