The Chariot of Apollo - Odilon Redon
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Description
A luminous Symbolist painting by Odilon Redon, depicting the sun god Apollo driving his chariot through an atmospheric, dreamlike sky.
Odilon Redon, a central figure in the Symbolist movement, produced several variations of the Chariot of Apollo throughout his career. This particular work captures the sun god as he traverses the heavens, a theme that allowed Redon to explore his fascination with light and colour. Unlike his earlier, darker charcoal works, this painting demonstrates his later shift towards a luminous, painterly style.
The composition is dominated by an expansive, atmospheric sky. The horses, rendered with a sense of ethereal movement, pull the chariot through clouds that are painted with soft, blended strokes. Redon uses a palette of blues, golds, and muted pinks to suggest the transition of dawn or the brilliance of the sun. The figure of Apollo is simplified, acting as a silhouette against the vastness of the celestial space.
Redon often returned to classical mythology, not to provide a literal narrative, but to evoke a dreamlike state. The lack of sharp edges or rigid perspective creates a sense of suspension, as if the scene exists outside of time. The paint application is light and airy, allowing the texture of the canvas to contribute to the overall effect of a vision emerging from mist. By focusing on the interplay of light and form, Redon moves away from the descriptive realism of his contemporaries, opting instead for an evocative, subjective interpretation of the myth. This work reflects his interest in the internal world of the imagination, where the physical boundaries of the sky dissolve into pure colour and light. It is a study in atmosphere, where the subject serves as a vehicle for the artist to experiment with the expressive potential of his medium.
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Each print is produced to order using 12-colour giclée printing on FSC-certified archival paper. Designed in Britain and printed at your nearest production hub to reduce waste and speed up delivery.
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Specific Features
Every Solis piece is made to order with archival, gallery-quality materials built to last.
- Museum-grade giclée printing for rich, fade-resistant colour
- Archival matte fine-art paper, FSC-certified
- Multiple sizes and framing options available
- Frames in black, natural wood, dark wood or white
- Framed prints arrive ready to hang
Care & Cleaning
To keep your artwork looking its best:
- Dust gently with a soft, dry cloth
- Avoid prolonged direct sunlight
- Never use liquid cleaners on the print or canvas surface
- Keep in a dry, room-temperature space
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Materials & Sizing
Museum-grade giclée on FSC-certified archival matte paper, with framed and canvas options.
- Paper sizes: A4, A3, A2, A1, A0 and B2 (50×70 cm)
- Canvas: XS (20×30 cm) to Large (60×90 cm)
- Frames: black, natural wood, dark wood or white
The Chariot of Apollo - Odilon Redon
Artist Biography
Odilon Redon
For the first two decades of his career he worked exclusively in black: charcoal drawings and lithographs he called his noirs. Floating eyeballs, severed heads with closed lids, spiders with human faces, plants that grow teeth. The images are hallucinatory but precisely rendered, closer to medical illustration than fantasy. He published his first lithograph album, Dans le Reve, in 1879. Nobody noticed.
Recognition came sideways. In 1884, Joris-Karl Huysmans published A rebours, a novel about a reclusive aesthete who decorates his rooms with Redon's prints. The book became a cult text for the Symbolist movement and Redon became famous by association. Stephane Mallarme, the Symbolist poet, became a close friend. Redon also completed a series of lithographs dedicated to Edgar Allan Poe, whose poems Mallarme and Baudelaire had translated into French.
After 1900 he stopped making noirs entirely and shifted to colour: pastels and oils of flowers, mythological figures and butterflies in palettes that anticipate Matisse. The transition was so complete that the Surrealists later claimed the black work while the Fauves claimed the colour, and neither group seemed to notice they were talking about the same person.
He studied under Jean-Leon Gerome at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, which is an unlikely pairing: Gerome painted Roman gladiators with photographic precision. Redon painted eyeballs attached to balloons. Goya and Delacroix were the influences that actually stuck.
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