Odilon Redon, painter, lithographer, watercolorist and drawing artist was born in Bordeaux in 1840. From his early days on, Redon kept his distance with the impressionist movement, rationalizing that it « reproduire la nature sans invention, de borner l'art et de lui refuser ses sources les plus fécondes : la pensée, l'inspiration, le génie… » ("reproduces nature without creativity, confining art and inhibiting its most fertile sources : thoughts, inspiration, genius… ». Redon favors the exploration of imagination, expresses his exaltation towards nature and its mysteries, and quickly becomes inseparable from the symbolist movement. His apprenticeship of art and engraving with Rodolphe Bresdin (1822-1885) (fig.1) and his immeasurable admiration for Delacroix (1798-1863) considerably influenced his work. Fig. 1: Rodolphe Bresdin, Le Bon Samaritain, (The Good Samaritan), Lithography, 1861, Brooklyn Museum. Inspired by the calling for Romanticism, Redon visits the Pyrénées in 1863. This period will be one of melancholic and solitary contemplation of nature, experimentation of sublimation and transcendence. After the 1870 war, he develops "his own conscience" and works exclusively on his "blacks" (fig. 2), before starting in 1890 to focus on polychromie and the use of oil and water colors (fig.3). In his isolated work, his cycles or illustrations, the artist dedicates himself to the exploration of imagination and the unconscious. Between 1870 and 1895, Odilon Redon almost exclusively works on his « blacks » before relying, based on his admiration for Gustave Moreau (1826-1898), as well as Goya (1746-1828) to whom he paid homage in 1885, on the fantastic dimensions of biblical and mythological themes, the discovery of the infinitesimally small, nature, and the kingdom of dreams and nightmares. Figure 2 Odilon Redon, Enchanted Forest, charcoal, Musée des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux. In Femme nue dans la forêt enchantée, (Woman in the nude in enchanted forest), a feminine figure whose hair partly covers her naked body is standing against a tree like a phantasmagorical figure emerging from the luxurious overgrown nature. The atmosphere is mysterious; the figure gazes at the spectator, time becomes endless, the scene seems suspended. Our drawing explores one of Redon's symbols of predilection, the tree, as confirmed by Agnès Lacau: « The tree is fundamental in the work of Redon, a native of Peyrelebade (a swampy area in the Landes where Redon spent his childhood and adolescence with his uncle). Redon always incorporates the tree motif that he infuses with life and personality. A symbol of life, diving deep into the heart of the earth and soaring up towards the sky, the tree imposes its majestic verticality into the work of Odilon Redon, standing like a tutelary deity. » With Redon, form holds the power of symbolism. Our charcoal work is typical of his prolific imagination overflowing with enchanting and wondrous visions, sometimes melancholic and solemn. The artist however always renders his mysterious world with poetry and sensitivity: the blacks of his charcoals are intense and velvety, and the choice of nature as main source of inspiration always brings a oneiric dimension to his work. Figure 3 Odilon Redon, Ophelia among flowers, (Ophélie parmi les fleurs), watercolor, circa 1905, National Gallery, London.