Aiming for the Stars

Aiming for the Stars is the first comprehensive English-language biography of Odilon Redon in decades, offering a fresh and vivid reappraisal of an artist whose work fascinated and perplexed his contemporaries. Ted Gott traces Redon’s lonely youth in the south of France, his experience of the Franco-Prussian War and his gradual emergence within avant-garde literary and artistic circles in Paris. Redon’s involvement with occult, Symbolist and Wagnerian circles, alongside his late renaissance as a master of decoration and colour, are brought into focus with clarity and nuance. Particular attention is given to the artist’s remarkable technical command of charcoal drawing and lithography, illuminated through the lens of abundant press commentary and correspondence. Ted Gott’s book restores Redon as a singular, restless presence in modern art.