About this work
At the centre of this luminous canvas stands Pegasus, the winged horse rendered in the midst of a rearing stance, while a muse is seated upon his back — her posture relaxed and contemplative, suggesting a harmonious unity between the creature and the figure it carries. What strikes the eye first is not drama but radiance: the background is a luminous display of vivid, almost ethereal colors that seem to blend into one another, giving the impression of an otherworldly realm.
The palette runs from soft pastels to rich jewel tones, and the delicate interplay of blues, pinks, and golds deepens the painting's dreamlike quality.
Redon's brushwork is both fluid and expressive, combining soft strokes with bolder lines to convey emotion and movement — as though Pegasus is on the verge of flight, carrying the muse into the realm of pure creativity.
Painted around 1900, this work sits at the exact hinge point of one of the most dramatic transformations in Redon's career. During the early 1890s, after undergoing a religious crisis and a serious illness, Redon moved toward a more positive mindset — a shift that impacted his adoption of radiant color and more joyful imagery.
A major body of this new work was exhibited in 1899 at the famous Gallery Durand-Ruel, and after the success of that presentation he began to exhibit more frequently.
For the rest of his career, Redon used pastels and oil paints to generate colorful images, dispensing with charcoal for the most part — pastel in particular allowing him to retain some of the graphic energy of his lithographic years while experimenting with high-key hues.
Redon engaged the Pegasus theme in paintings, drawings, and lithographs from the early 1880s to the very end of his career, and this oil canvas version — where nightmare has given way entirely to myth and the muse has arrived — represents that mythology at its most open and hopeful. He had gradually turned his nightmares and monsters into mythological goddesses, magical creatures, and floral motifs, employing blurred contours and luminous areas of color.
