Abstract: Odilon Redon was a leader of French Symbolist painting in the late 19th century. Merging dream into flowers is an important artistic device to create images in Redon’s works. With his unique life experience and painting language, Redon established a “secret kinship” between the subject and the object, which is of special and universal significance to Symbolist Aesthetics. Viewed from the history of flower painting, Redon created a new type of abstract flowers different from realistic or ideographic flowers by reactivating realism and advancing impressionism, thus enriching the aesthetic types of flower painting.

Key words:  symbolism, Odilon Redon, theme of flower painting