The Death of Orpheus

The Death of Orpheus, painted in 1904 and held at the Harvard Art Museums, was a subject Redon returned to multiple times, drawn to its themes of artistic martyrdom and the violence of irrational forces against poetic sensibility. In the myth, the Maenads tore Orpheus apart, yet his head continued to sing as it floated downstream. For Redon, this represented the invulnerability of the imagination against destructive forces—a personally resonant idea for an artist who spent decades in near-obscurity. The Harvard Art Museums hold this as part of a significant collection of French Symbolist and Post-Impressionist art.

Redon treats the violence of the myth obliquely, focusing on Orpheus's head and lyre with poetic rather than narrative emphasis. The colour is subdued relative to his flower paintings—blues, greens, and ochres create a funereal yet luminous mood. The severed head is rendered as elegy, not horror.