Artwork

Then There Appears a Singular Being, Having the Head of a Man on the Body of a Fish

Then There Appears a Singular Being, Having the Head of a Man on the Body of a Fish is a print by the Impressionist artist Odilon Redon. It dates from 1888 and is held in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

About this work

Overview

Then There Appears a Singular Being, Having the Head of a Man on the Body of a Fish is a print by Odilon Redon, part of a portfolio inspired by Gustave Flaubert’s novel The Temptation of Saint Anthony. The work features a fantastical, unsettling creature: a human head grafted onto a fish’s body, suspended in empty space.

Subject & Meaning

The subject is an invented monster, not directly described in Flaubert’s text but born from Redon’s interpretation of the novel’s dark, imaginative tone. It embodies the surreal, nightmarish quality of the hermit’s moral trials in the desert.

Technique & Style

Redon employed lithography to achieve a dense, dark aesthetic, mimicking the charcoal drawings that preceded the prints. The grainy, high-contrast effect is characteristic of lithography’s capabilities, with greasy crayons on stone used to draw the image.

History & Provenance

Created as part of a series inspired by Flaubert’s 1874 novel, the prints were met with misunderstanding during Redon’s lifetime, despite his belief that they successfully captured the source material’s surreal essence.

Context

While influenced by Flaubert’s literary work, the piece reflects Redon’s own exploration of the subconscious and the bizarre, aligning with broader avant-garde interests in the unusual and the dreamlike.

Legacy

Though initially misunderstood, the work now exemplifies Redon’s innovative approach to translating literary themes into visual, often unsettling, artworks, influencing subsequent artists in exploring the realms of the surreal and the fantastical.