{"id":370498,"date":"2026-04-09T02:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T02:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/370498\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T02:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T02:40:10","slug":"retrospective-of-naive-henri-rousseau-reveals-painters-ambition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/370498\/","title":{"rendered":"Retrospective of \u2018naive\u2019 Henri Rousseau reveals painter\u2019s ambition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andr\u00e9 Malraux, the novelist, once said it was naive to describe Henri Rousseau\u2019s paintings as naive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The label has stuck because of the self-taught artist\u2019s almost childishly innocent style, despite his highly adult themes and his relentless quest to be taken seriously by an often hostile art establishment.<\/p>\n

A landmark exhibition in Paris\u2019s Orangerie museum, titled A Painter\u2019s Ambition, explores how Rousseau, nicknamed Le Douanier because of his job as a toll collector for the city of Paris, spent decades fighting for recognition.<\/p>\n

\"VisitorsThe Wedding Party, 1905Alain Jocard\/AFP<\/p>\n

He only became a full-time painter at the age of 49. His self-portrait hangs at the entrance to the exhibition, depicting him wearing an artist\u2019s beret, holding a paintbrush and a palette.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRousseau was determined to present himself to the world as an artist although he had little or no formal training,\u201d said Juliette Degennes, one of the curators.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the self-portrait, he\u2019s wearing an academic medal on his buttonhole, reinforcing his claim to be an accomplished artist rather than a humble customs officer, but in fact it was never awarded to him, but to someone else of the same name.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with 50 of his paintings, two letters are exhibited that reveal his ambition. In 1907 he wrote to Armand Falli\u00e8res, the president of the day, proposing that the state buy some of his paintings, which he had shown at the Salon des Ind\u00e9pendants, the alternative to the French government\u2019s annual art exhibition.<\/p>\n

\"IllustrationCarnival Evening, 1886Alamy<\/p>\n

The answer was no, as it had been when he wrote nine years earlier to the mayor of Laval, his birthplace in western France, suggesting that the municipality buy\u00a0The Sleeping Gypsy\u00a0because he intended it as a tribute to his hometown.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe asked for 2,000 francs, a consequential sum at the time, but the mayor laughed at the notion,\u201d Degennes said. \u201cThe letters reveal how he tried to sell himself to the establishment as a serious artist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initially mocked by critics, Rousseau\u2019s artistic genius was eventually acknowledged and he influenced the Parisian avant-garde, including Pablo Picasso.<\/p>\n

One of Rousseau\u2019s strongest supporters was Guillaume Apollinaire, the poet, who helped spread the legend that the painter had drawn inspiration for his series of jungle paintings, including\u00a0The Snake Charmer, from a sojourn in Mexico with troops sent there by Emperor Napoleon III.<\/p>\n

\"IllustrationThe Snake Charmer, 1907Alamy<\/p>\n

In reality, Rousseau never set foot outside France, which he eventually admitted to a journalist in 1910, the year of his death.<\/p>\n

His paintings are rich with lush tropical vegetation and exotic animals, but they were inspired by his frequent visits to the Paris botanical gardens and zoo.<\/p>\n

For the first time, three of his masterpieces are being shown in the same room:\u00a0The Sleeping Gypsy\u00a0hangs alongside\u00a0The Snake Charmer\u00a0and\u00a0The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope.<\/p>\n

\"AThe Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope, 1905Photo by ALAIN JOCARD\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Critics have often described Rousseau\u2019s style and vivid colours as primitive, but he said his work was \u201cprincipled\u201d. His 1894 painting\u00a0La Guerre\u00a0laments the horrors of war, and\u00a0later paintings such as\u00a0The Dream\u00a0evoke sexuality and forbidden desire.<\/p>\n

An interactive installation at the exhibition shows that the \u201cnaive\u201d painter worked carefully and deliberately, without hasty strokes or shortcuts.<\/p>\n

Rousseau lived in penury, sometimes asking friends for money to buy food. In 1907 he was briefly jailed for allegedly forging cheques.<\/p>\n

Prophetically, he once told his daughter: \u201cYou are quite mistaken not to like my paintings. One day they will be worth more than a hundred thousand francs!\u201d<\/p>\n

Three years ago,\u00a0Les Flamants\u00a0(The Flamingoes), painted shortly before his death, fetched more than $43.5 million including auction fees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andr\u00e9 Malraux, the novelist, once said it was naive to describe Henri Rousseau\u2019s paintings as naive.\u00a0 The label…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-370498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}