Médoc, la lande

The Médoc 'lande' — the flat, open heathland characteristic of the Gironde peninsula — was the landscape of Redon's childhood, and he returned to it repeatedly in direct observation studies throughout his career. The Médoc heath was austere and wide by any standard: flat to the horizon, its vegetation scrubby pine, broom, and heather, its light harsh in summer and melancholy in winter. For Redon it was a landscape of deep personal memory, associated with the solitude of his early years. This undated cardboard work belongs to the tradition of French plein-air landscape studies that ran through his work alongside the mythological and imaginary subjects. The Musée d'Orsay's holding of multiple Médoc views reveals the sustained importance of this specific landscape to his artistic imagination, a geographical anchor in an otherwise highly abstract oeuvre.

Oil on cardboard with a restrained landscape palette suited to the austere Médoc terrain. Horizontal bands of earth, heath vegetation, and sky dominate a composition determined by the extreme flatness of the terrain. The colour range is muted — ochres, grey-greens, tawny browns — with the Orsay characteristic atmospheric light giving the open plain its characteristic emptiness.