…And a huge bird, descending from the sky, hurled itself against her crown of hair…

1888
Plate III from the portfolio Temptation of Saint Anthony (first series)

‘And whereas earlier depictions of Saint Anthony are primarily concerned with issues of sin and salvation, good versus evil, Flaubert’s and Redon’s nineteenth-century interpretation is overall bound up with a more generalized spirituality, mysticism, and search for meaning or purpose in life. This difference is reflected in the plate bearing the existentialist title Anthony: What Is the Point of All This? The Devil: There Is No Point!, which portrays the devil not as a menacing or terrifying demon but as another of Redon’s soulful, dolorous visages. As Sigmund Freud wrote of Flaubert’s text, “It calls up not only the great problems of knowledge, but the real riddles of life… [and] our perplexity in the mysteriousness that reigns everywhere.”‘

— Beyond the Visible: the Art of Odilon Redon, Jodi Hauptman