Profile of a Woman with a Vase of Flowers

Few painters combined portraiture and still life as strangely as Redon did in Profile of a Woman with a Vase of Flowers, painted around 1900 and now held at Tate. A female profile—rendered in near-silhouette—is placed beside an explosion of flowers so vivid they almost overwhelm the figure. Redon's approach resists conventional genre distinctions: the woman and the bouquet occupy the same psychic space, each commenting on the other's presence. The work emerged during his colour period, a transformation he credited partly to the emotional impact of his son Ari's recovery from illness. Redon said flowers represented for him the smile of nature, and his still lifes carry an almost devotional intensity.

The profile is handled with restraint—thin, soft contours against a warm background—while the flower arrangement is built up with dense, impasto-like layers of oil colour. The contrast between the quiet linearity of the face and the tactile richness of the blossoms creates a deliberate visual tension.