Rousseau, dreamer of jungles
Thilak PALLIYAGURUGE
The French painter Henri Rousseau, grandfather of naïve (primitive)
and surrealistic paintings was born in 1844 in Laval, a market town in
north-west France and died in Montparnasse in 1910 where he lived and
worked.
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Henry Rousseau |
After completing his academic studies in the secondary school, he
enlisted to the Army. In 1871, Rousseau secured a job as clerk in the
Paris Octroi, imposing duty on goods entering the City. It is this job
that is to earn Rousseau his nickname Le Douanier.
He devoted his leisure hours copying paintings in Louvre and studying
botanical plant life in gardens in Paris. He married twice but both
wives died at a tender age.
Though no exact date has been established, it is likely that Rousseau
started painting in his early forties. From about 1886 he began to
exhibit in the Salon des Indépendants.
In 1893, he retired early from the Octroi to paint full time. He
embarked on a never ending mission to devote the rest of his life on a
career in painting. He often claimed that "he had no teacher others than
nature", a self made artist without a formal education in art.
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Tiger in a tropical storm |
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The dream |
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The snake charmer |
Braque, Kandinsky and other avant-garde artists were in close
association with him. Guillaume Apollinaire, Robert Delaunay and Wilhelm
Udhe paved the way for him to achieve his objective career. Pablo
Picasso admired his work, and discussed highly about his talents; he
held a banquet in his honour in 1908.
His known works are all dated after 1880. During the early period of
his career, the subjects he chose were the scenes and people of local
life, often childlike in perception, especially in painting the details.
The zenith of his imagination and creativity brought about an entirely
different concept of a strong command of visual language skills, and
techniques in his canvases.
He started the painting of his jungle scenes in 1891 and returned to
this Jungle painting genre in 1904.
Le Rêve (The Dream), painted in 1910, is considered as a memory
figure of his first love, reclining on a sofa in one of his dream
jungles. It is also a candid example of a painting done with
surrealistic ingredients a generation before surrealists developed their
ideals. Jungle scenes he painted earned an undisputed fame as a
competent artist with a profound skill.
To commemorate the 100th death anniversary of Rousseau, Alliance
française de Kandy is holding an exhibition of reproductions of his work
from November 12 to 22. This exhibition will be declared open on
November 12 at 6.30pm by French Embassy Conseiller de Coopération et
d'Action Culturelle Hervé Mascarau. An art workshop for selected
students will also be launched as a parallel discipline on November 12
and 14. The works by the students during the workshop will be exhibited
from November 16 to 22. |
