Odilon Redon

It's the old Greek story — a princess chained to a rock as an offering to a sea monster, waiting on a rescue that's supposedly on its way. They say the painter spent twenty-odd years working in nothing but charcoal black before he let colour in at all.

For decades he mostly made dark, unsettling charcoal prints — this bright, ordinary bouquet came from a total swing late in his career.

According to Wikipedia he spent the first half of his career working almost entirely in black — charcoal and prints, most of it pretty grim — and only came round to colour late on. The story behind the title is the usual one: a woman, a box she's told to leave shut, and everything bad in the world getting out of it.

For most of his life he drew in black and white — charcoal nightmares, spiders with human faces — and apparently only went over to colour near the end. He came back to this same saint several times.