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The Sleeping Gypsy, 1897
Oil on canvas; The Museum of Modern Art, New York
I have been lucky enough to have seen some of Henri Rousseau’s work at The Museum of Modern Art in New York and can say that most of the criticism of his work is fueled bigotry and jealousy. Rousseau was rarely taken seriously as a painter because of his working class background, his dream-like painting subjects, and his simple painting techniques until artists such as Pablo Picasso and Wassily Kandinsky came to express their appreciation for his work. If Rousseau is unknown to you, below is some background information on the painter.
Henri Julien Rousseau (1844-1910) was a French Post-Impressionist painter who helped to develop the ideas behind the surrealist movement. However, Rousseau was much different than avant-garde artists of the time as he was self-taught and from the working class. Because of his class and initial status as a hobbyist, many ridiculed and still do ridicule him. Rousseau retired from plumbing at the age of 49 to try his hand at painting. He was extremely naive, had had no academic art training and his painting technique was considered extremely simple, but he developed his own painting style that was different fromt the avant-garde art surrounding him at the time.
The Dream, 1910
Oil on canvas; The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Despite starting out as a hobby painter, Rousseau deserves to be recognized as a true forerunner of Surrealism.
July 10th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
I would agree that Rousseau’s interest in dreams, in retrospect, laid some groundwork for Surrealism. But I’m not sure about bigotry and jealousy. How do you figure that?
Also if he was showing in the Salon des Indépendants regularly, which was officially sponsored by the government, then he wasn’t completely ostracized. Perhaps because of his lack of politics, in hindsight he can be perceived as being “lightweight” in the history of painting.
I’ve seen his work at MOMA as well and always felt a stronger spiritual thread running through his work, having more in common with the Symbolists than the psychological and political leanings of the Surrealists… but that’s just me.
I like your blog. Keep it up.
July 14th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Courtney, you make a great point that he was not completely ostracized. I was not specific enough to use such strong words as bigotry and jealousy. It was his early years of painting that I was describing when he was less accepted as a serious artist.
I agree that there is definite apparent connections to Symbolism as well in Rousseau’s paintings. What I find to hold my attention the most is the dream-like content of his paintings, which is much different than that of his peers.
Thank you very much for the insight and the compliment!
September 13th, 2008 at 11:15 am
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