Two Robed Figures (One Holding a Staff), Standing in a Landscape (Dante and Virgil)

In contrast to many of his Parisian contemporaries who were looking to the countryside for inspiration and drawing specific trees, swamps, and gorges, Redonʼs greatest resource was his imagination, from which he plucked elements assembled with the logic of dreams. He wrote that working from nature left him depleted and that he was rejuvenated only by revisiting the experience in his mind and depicting his recollections. While landscapes enlivened with small-scale figures are a common and traditional genre, here the twenty-five-year-old Redon has approached the scene with richly textured strokes of charcoal and chalk to imbue it with an air of mystery.