内容简介
A singular figure in the avant garde of the
early twentieth century, Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) was a
self-taught painter who turned to art after retiring as a customs
inspector at the age of 49. Although he never left Paris, Rousseau
painted a number of jungle scenes, drawing on images of the exotic
as presented to the urban dweller through popular literature,
colonial expositions and the Paris zoo. "The Dream" (1910) is the
artist's last major work. Exhibited at the 1910 Salon des
Independants a few months before Rousseau's death in September of
that year, it exemplifies that surreal juxtaposition of the exotic
and the domestic, realized with an uncanny exactitude, for which
Rousseau is so beloved today. The poet and art critic Guillaume
Apollinaire praised the work, countering his detractors: "The
picture radiates beauty, that is indisputable. I believe nobody
will laugh this year." In this volume, Ann Temkin, the Museum's
Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and
Sculpture, guides readers in deciphering this mysterious painting,
illuminating its significance and placing it within the development
of modern art and in Rousseau's own life.