One of the most expressive artists of the Symbolism movement, Odilon (1840–1916) led a quiet life. Withdrawn in manner, conventional in dress, and virtually unknown for the first half of his career, the French painter and graphic artist drew upon his own startlingly complex and fantastic inner world to create haunting works that reveal an existence beyond that of everyday vision. He transformed common subjects and models into strange, eerie images and exhibited a predilection for spiders and serpents, skeletons and skulls, gnomes and monsters — all rendered in a distinctive style of controlled, delicate realism.