Editing Odilon Redon (section)

==Early life==
Odilon Redon was born, on 20 April 1840,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/odilon-redon-2243|title=Odilon Redon 1840–1916|website=Tate}}</ref> in [[Bordeaux]], [[Aquitaine]], to a prosperous family. Redon's father made his fortune in the [[History of slavery in Louisiana|slave trade in Louisiana]] in the 1830s.<ref name="Pfohl 2016">{{cite web |last1=Pfohl |first1=Katie |title=Odilon Redon: How Louisiana ancestry influenced his Symbolist art |url=https://noma.org/odilon-redon-edgar-poe-louisiana/ |website=New Orleans Museum of Art |access-date=5 April 2020 |date=28 October 2016}}</ref> Redon was conceived in [[New Orleans]] and the couple made the transatlantic journey back to France while his mother Marie Guérin, a [[Creole peoples#Louisiana|French Creole]] woman, was pregnant with his brother Gaston.<ref name="Pfohl 2016" /> The young Bertrand Redon acquired the nickname "Odilon" from his mother's first name, Odile.<ref name="Ministère de la culture">{{cite web | title=Base Léonore | website=Ministère de la culture | url=http://www2.culture.gouv.fr/LH/LH187/PG/FRDAFAN83_OL2282058V008.htm | language=fr | access-date=8 February 2023}}</ref><ref name="artstory">{{cite web |last1=Seiferle |first1=Rebecca |title=Odilon Redon's Life and Legacy |url=https://www.theartstory.org/artist-redon-odilon-life-and-legacy.htm |publisher=The Art Story Contributors |access-date=23 August 2018}}</ref> Redon started drawing as a child; at the age of ten, he was awarded a drawing prize at school. He began the formal study of drawing at fifteen but, at his father's insistence, he changed to architecture. Failure to pass the entrance exams at Paris' [[École des Beaux-Arts]] ended any plans for a career as an architect, although he briefly studied painting there under [[Jean-Léon Gérôme]] in 1864. (His younger brother [[Gaston Redon]] would become a noted architect.)

Back in his native Bordeaux, he took up sculpting, and [[Rodolphe Bresdin]] instructed him in [[etching]] and [[lithography]]. His artistic career was interrupted in 1870 when he was drafted<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/gallery/redon/about/childhood.html|title=The Fitzwilliam Museum – Home {{!}} Online Resources {{!}} Online Exhibitions {{!}} Redon {{!}} About Odilon Redon {{!}} Childhood and Early Career|date=5 November 2009|website=www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk|language=en|access-date=7 February 2017}}</ref> to serve in the army in the [[Franco-Prussian War]] until its end in 1871.<ref name="Sharyk 2022">{{cite journal | last=Sharyk | first=Hailee | title=Chapter 10 – Odilon Redon | website=Library Publishing for Open Textbooks | date=1 January 2022 | url=https://openeducationalberta.ca/19thcenturyart/chapter/chapter-10-odilon-redon/#_ftn4 | access-date=8 February 2023}}</ref>