World Famous Painters Collection: Rousseau

Author: He Zhengguang, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2003-01-01
Features: Preface: At the end of the late 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, it was the era when Post-Impressionism was nearing its end, while Fauvism and Cubism were about to emerge. In Paris, an artistic trend of anti-academicism and pursuit of avant-garde emerged. Amidst the chaos, individual creativity was allowed, and non-European civilizations gained attention. Exoticism, primitivism, folklore, and other alien cultural expressions revealed their value. At that time, naive painters also rose to prominence, bringing attention to the paintings of Na?ve art to critics and writers. The simplicity, primitiveness, and vitality of the path of Na?ve art became its aesthetic characteristics, advocating the use of art to express the primitive nature of humanity. Henri Rousseau was a representative figure of this movement. Before World War I, Paris had customs gates at its entrances, and taxes were levied on wine, grain, milk, and other goods entering the city. Rousseau was a minor customs official at the time. In his autobiography, he mentioned that due to his parents' financial constraints, he could not enter an art school to study the art he loved and instead took a job unrelated to art. But who could have imagined that this amateur and Sunday painter, untrained in art school and self-taught, would later become a great painter in art history. Rousseau (1844–1910) was born in the small town of Laval in northwestern France. His father was a worker. In his youth, for financial reasons, he voluntarily enlisted in the 51st Infantry Regiment. After the war, he worked as a tax official in Paris but was forced to leave due to fraudulent misconduct. Rousseau developed an interest in painting at an early age, and his works, with their innocent and carefree worlds, were highly appreciated by Parisian painters and writers at the time. Picasso, Matisse, and the avant-garde art poet Apollinaire were among those who enjoyed his company. Rumors spread that Rousseau had participated in the French campaign in Mexico in his youth when Napoleon III invaded the country. At the "Rousseau Night" organized by Picasso and others in 1908, poet Apollinaire delivered an impromptu poem: "Rousseau, do you remember? The exotic landscapes in your paintings—、、、—are they not the scenes you witnessed in Mexico? Just as before, the sun still dapples the treetops with bananas. Rousseau often depicted lush dense forests, the primitive and mysterious natural scenes, and sometimes his innocent and pure dreams. He used simple, pure colors and clear outlines, painting the veins of every leaf as if breeding souls of nostalgia and exhaling the fragrance of fantasy. The fairy-tale world of this solitary tax collector is simple, vivid, and full of poetry, and his unique style in his works makes it impossible not to recognize him as a master. Today, Rousseau's representative paintings are collected in world-class museums such as the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. We praise Rousseau, as well as the simplicity of the amateur painter and the essence of the self-taught naive artist. Rousseau, who rose from a naive painter to a master of modern Na?ve art, is a typical example of a self-taught success. His works blend reality and dreams, filled with the naive vitality of nature. Self-taught Rousseau, with his perseverance, effort, and unique talent, established his own meticulous depiction style and personal style, and won the admiration of his contemporaries, such as Picasso, Matisse, and Apollinaire. In his hands, the primitive and mysterious forest landscapes conceal infinite life and exhale the fragrance of fantasy, simple, vivid, and full of poetry. The exquisite works of Rousseau collected in this book, whether jungle landscapes or portraits, all show unique ideas. Rousseau's artistic concepts and forms seem far outside the mainstream in the history of art development, but his distinctive style made him a pioneer of Na?ve art, and he holds an important position in the subsequent history of art.