Henri Rousseau's most important painting of this…
1897 CE
It portrays a female Gypsy asleep in a moonlit desert with a huge lion standing over her, seemingly transfixed and unwilling to touch her.
The landscape is completely bare except for the Gypsy's jug and mandolin.
This painting is exceedingly primitive in its technique; the Gypsy lies stiffly on the ground, still clutching her walking staff, and her smiling face is childishly rendered.
The stripes of her dress and the hairs of the lion's mane are individually traced in a naive but decorative, almost abstract manner.
The painting, however, is wonderfully expressive.
The Gypsy's smile, the lion's staring eye, the bare, unearthly landscape, and the whimsical twist at the end of the lion's tail unite opposing feelings of peace and danger, solemn mystery and whimsy, into a powerful expression of magical enchantment.
When he exhibits the painting, Rousseau writes to the mayor of his native Laval asking him to purchase it; he intends it to be a tribute to his native town.
The mayor, however, is merely amused at the idea.
Rousseau, by this time, has enormous confidence in his own work and considers himself to be a great painter.
Not only is he unaware of his lack of conventional technical skill, but also he believes that his work resembles that of the academic painters.
Images
Henri Rousseau: The Sleeping Gypsy (1897); color on canvas 130 cm (51.1 ″) x 201 cm (79.1 ″). Museum of Modern Art.
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West Europe
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