The artwork entitled “The beasts of the sea, round like leather bottles” was created by the artist Odilon Redon in 1896. It’s a piece from “The Temptation of Saint Anthony” series, executing the medium of lithography on paper. The piece is associated with the Symbolism art movement and is considered a symbolic painting.
In this work, the viewer is presented with an ethereal and dreamlike composition typical of Redon’s fascination with the fantastical and the unseen world of imagination. The lithograph depicts amorphous entities that appear to float within indefinable, dark waters. The creatures exhibit bulbous, round forms that remind one of leather bottles, as mentioned in the artwork’s title. Their elongated, winding appendages add a mysterious and possibly unsettling nuance to the forms, effectively capturing the otherworldly atmosphere that the Symbolist movement sought to evoke. The background employs a subtle gradation of tone that contributes to the depth of the scene, allowing these ‘beasts’ to appear as if emerging from the murky depths of the subconscious. The text beneath the forms suggests a description or a poetic contemplation that further aligns with the Symbolist’s movement’s intention to explore the terrain beyond physical reality, delving into ideas, emotions, and esoteric narratives.
