Ophélie, la cape bleue sur les eaux (Ophelia with a Blue Wimple in the Water)

Odilon Redon's 'Ophélie with a Blue Wimple in the Water' from around 1900 reimagines Shakespeare's Ophelia through the lens of Symbolist reverie. Redon was drawn repeatedly to literary subjects that allowed him to dissolve narrative into pure atmosphere and colour. Unlike the Pre-Raphaelite treatments of Ophelia as a document of botanical naturalism, Redon's version transforms the drowned woman into a luminous apparition, her fate barely legible beneath the beauty of colour. The Rijksmuseum holds this late oil, which reflects Redon's move from the black-and-white noirs of his earlier career toward his celebrated colour period.

Redon applies colour in soft, diffused passages with minimal hard contour, allowing figure and water to merge in hazy luminescence. The blue of the wimple resonates with surrounding cool tones while warm accents in the face and flowers create gentle chromatic vibration. The paint surface is thin and delicate, with Redon's characteristic sensitivity to tonal gradation.