Odilon Redon
(1840 - 1916)

Odilon Redon was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist.
Early in his career, both before and after fighting in the Franco-Prussian War, he worked almost exclusively in charcoal and lithography, works referred to as noirs. He started gaining recognition after his drawings were mentioned in the 1884 novel À rebours (Against Nature) by Joris-Karl Huysmans. During the 1890s he began working in pastel and oils, which quickly became his favourite medium, abandoning his previous style of noirs completely after 1900. He also developed a keen interest in Hindu and Buddhist religion and culture, which increasingly showed in his work.
He is perhaps best known today for the "dreamlike" paintings created in the first decade of the 20th century, which were heavily inspired by Japanese art and which, while continuing to take inspiration from nature, heavily flirted with abstraction. His work is considered a precursor to both Dadaism and Surrealism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odilon_Redon

The Cyclops
Circa 1914
Oil on cardboard mounted on panel
65,8 x 52,7 cm
Köller-Müller Museum, Otterloo
https://krollermuller.nl/en/odilon-redon-the-cyclops-1

In this painting, the Cyclops Polyphemus spies on the sleeping Nereid Galathea from behind a tall mountain. The one-eyed giant’s love remains unrequited, as Galathea prefers the river god Acis. The unnaturally large eye is the most conspicuous part of the painting. In Redon’s work, the eye is often an all controlling, independent creature, a symbol of the human soul and of the mysterious, unknown inner world.