The Sleeping Gypsy, 1897
Oil on canvas; The Museum of Modern Art, New York

I have been lucky enough to have seen some of Henri Rousseau’s work at The Museum of Modern Art in New York and can say that most of the criticism of his work is fueled bigotry and jealousy. Rousseau was rarely taken seriously as a painter because of his working class background, his dream-like painting subjects, and his simple painting techniques until artists such as Pablo Picasso and Wassily Kandinsky came to express their appreciation for his work. If Rousseau is unknown to you, below is some background information on the painter.

Henri Julien Rousseau (1844-1910) was a French Post-Impressionist painter who helped to develop the ideas behind the surrealist movement. However, Rousseau was much different than avant-garde artists of the time as he was self-taught and from the working class. Because of his class and initial status as a hobbyist, many ridiculed and still do ridicule him. Rousseau retired from plumbing at the age of 49 to try his hand at painting. He was extremely naive, had had no academic art training and his painting technique was considered extremely simple, but he developed his own painting style that was different fromt the avant-garde art surrounding him at the time.

The Dream, 1910
Oil on canvas; The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Despite starting out as a hobby painter, Rousseau deserves to be recognized as a true forerunner of Surrealism.