The French Symbolist Odilon Redon was a painter of nightmares, dreams and often the fantastical. His imagination was his inspiration. In his own words:
I have often, as an exercise and as a sustenance, painted before an
object down to the smallest accidents of its visual appearance; but the
day left me sad and with an unsatiated thirst. The next day I let the
other source run, that of imagination, through the recollection of the
forms and I was then reassured and appeased.
And the colours! Oh. Just so beautiful.