Ophelia with a Blue Wimple in the Water

A woman drifts through water and flowers, her figure almost dissolving into the dreamy haze around her. This is Ophelia, the tragic character from Shakespeare's Hamlet who drowns among the wildflowers she has gathered. Odilon Redon, a French artist working around the turn of the twentieth century, returned to this subject many times. Here he wraps her in a deep blue wimple, or head covering, that anchors the eye amid the swirl of pinks, greens, and golds. Notice the small burst of red poppies in the lower right corner, one of the few sharp details in an otherwise soft and floating scene.

Redon was part of the Symbolist movement, which cared less about painting the real world and more about capturing dreams, moods, and inner feelings. That approach suits Ophelia well, since her death is more suggested than shown. You do not see struggle or water rushing over her. Instead the whole picture feels like a memory fading at the edges, with flowers seeming to bloom straight out of the mist. Redon spent much of his early career working in dark charcoal and black prints, so these later paintings, glowing with color, show a very different side of him.