Study of Man between Trees

Odilon Redon

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This spare portrayal of a V-shaped tree finds formal echoes across the composition, from the stump at left to the spindly plant in the foreground. The retreating, isolated figure bracketed by the central tree and hollowed-out stump lends an air of melancholy to the drawing. Trees were a constant and significant motif for the Symbolist artist and one especially associated with the region of his childhood, Médoc, in the southwest of France. With the ship in the distance, locating this view on the coast, it seems a likely source of inspiration for this scene too.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art