The paintings of Henri Rousseau (1844–1910), particularly his astonishing jungle dreams, are now so popular that it is difficult to realize how they were originally greeted with ridicule and incomprehension. It was not until Rousseau was championed by the young avant-garde—Picasso, Delaunay, and Kandinsky, among others—that he came to be recognized at his true worth. One of the most significant of these early admirers was the dealer and art historian Wilhelm Uhde. It was Uhde who put on the first one-man show of Rousseau’s work, and the catalogue he wrote for the occasion is the basis of these Recollections. Much of what we know about Rousseau comes from these pages, which present a portrayal of a man of naivety, humor, gentleness, and total artistic commitment. Uhde returned to his text again and again, refining it and filling out telling details. The version presented here is the final, definitive text, which first appeared after World War I in a translation overseen by Uhde himself. An introduction by Nancy Ireson sets the Recollections in context, with an overview of Rousseau’s career, the ebb and flow of his reputation, and the part that this polemic and elegiac text played in the creation of a new kind of art.
Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) is a strange figure in French 20th century art. He pursued his own simple untutored course throughout all the years when his contemporaries were experimenting with new styles and movements.
Rousseau's series of jungle paintings was and still continues to be the subject of controversy. This book answers many of the questions surrounding Rousseau's importance as an artist and examines his paintings in a wider art-historical context. As a self-taught artist who started painting at the age of 40 and worked in an unorthodox, naive style, Rousseau had to struggle to overcome the derision of his contemporaries. That Rousseau succeeded in silencing his critics, winning wide admiration, including that of Picasso, the Surrealists and Wasily Kandinsky, owes much to the jungle paintings."--Amazon.
This beautiful book offers a detailed portrait of Rousseau's life and career as well as sensitive interpretations of his unusual, individualistic art. Adriani tells Rousseau's strange life story: his petty bourgeois background, his attempts to establish himself as an independent artist, and his reaction to the derision with which his art was greeted in his own time. 200 illustrations.
Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) never visited the tropics or saw a jungle in real life, anymore than he studied the wild animals he painted in their natural habitat. Rousseau's jungle paintings were the fantasies of a city dweller, constructed from visits to the Botanical Gardens in Paris, from books and from his vivid imagination. Nevertheless they have struck a chord with succeeding generations of viewers, offering a dream of escape from banal reality to an exotic and savage realm. In this beautiful miniature gift book the jungle paintings are reproduced in all their full, jewel-like colour, along with details highlighting the intricacy of the painter's extraordinary vision, and a brief explanatory text. A perfect and affordable introduction to the unique world of Henri Rousseau.
With large, full-color reproductions of Rousseau's paintings and many previously unpublished illustrations of his sources and influences, alongside a wealth of new research, this definitive overview provides new perspectives on both the life and the work ofthis remarkable artist.
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