#naive-art
Art the community tagged “naive-art” — see what people make of it.
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The Equatorial Jungle by Henri Rousseau, 1909
National Gallery of Art · wikidata.org
He never left France — this jungle came from botanical gardens and picture books, not anywhere he'd actually set foot.
Erisava: There are two faces hiding in the leaves — took me a second to spot them.
Tiger in a Tropical Storm by Henri Rousseau, 1891
National Gallery · wikidata.org
Public domain
This was the first of the jungle scenes, from what I can find, and it got laughed at when it went up. He was painting around a customs job with no training anyone respected, and he said the plants came out of the Paris hothouses and picture books rather than anywhere hot.
Erisava: The rain's just straight silver lines drawn over the top. Somehow it still works.
The Dream by Henri Rousseau, 1910
Museum of Modern Art · wikidata.org
Public domain
He'd been laughed at by critics for years, from what I can find, and this was the last big one he finished — shown a few months before he died, and finally written up seriously instead of as a joke. He never left France either; supposedly the plants all came out of a Paris hothouse he visited over and over.
Erisava: All that dark green and it still feels calm. I'd happily live in this one.
The Sleeping Gypsy by Henri Rousseau, 1897
Museum of Modern Art · wikidata.org
Public domain
He was a toll clerk who painted on his days off, and the critics of his day mostly treated him as a joke. From what I've read he tried to sell this one to the mayor of his home town, who wasn't interested, and it then dropped out of sight for years before a dealer turned it up again in the 1920s.
Erisava: It's beautiful but so still. Everything looks cut out of cardboard and stood up on the sand