One painting that caught my attention instantly in the gallery was Henri Rousseau’ oil painting called The Dream. This painting was done by French artist Henri Rousseau in 1910. Rousseau was born in 1844 in Laval, France were he grew up and lived a decent life style of attending school by day and being a boarder at night. Rousseau’ work was not noticed with extreme attention at the beginning, however, when he gained attention it became an inspiration to many people on how his art form came from so little experience and knowledge. Henri Rousseau is known for being a self-taught artist, whom did not care about the critiques on how imperfect his drawings were. The image above is an example of how at a first glance it is noticeable that his drawing have odd shapes. The reason for this, is the lines and curvature that do not follow a pattern or a single way. Rather, every line such as the woman’s head, or the lion’s head is not perfect at all. Instead, it has an unusual shape which makes this painting very interesting.
Aside from how imperfect this drawing is, the way to interpret it is that anything done with passion will reflect the type of artist you are. I believe Rousseau did an excellent job with this because he did not let anyone critiques offend him, and instead used that and valued it a lot to keep on working on how to be himself through his art pieces. This specific piece is considered surrealist because of how dramatic the images come out to be and the scenery that this is taking place in. The location of this image is in a forest, which depicts a lady laying between leaves surrounded by wildlife. Adding this type of expression category makes it include a platform of imagination, which is what made this artwork very intriguing during this time period. Additionally, several questions that have been rising while analyzing the different paintings in this category of surrealism is how Rousseau was the only one that stood by his technique and did not persuade others to follow free-handedly just as he did. Some people would suppose that because his paintings were getting a lot of recognition, people would want to start developing this skill. However, I believe that Rousseau did his paintings with a purpose and to leave a message that nothing is perfect in this world and its acceptance that matters the most.
Dayanna, I love this painting too; there is something very inviting about the world that Rousseau creates here. You are correct to identify him as a surrealist, but I wish you had said more about what Surrealism is and explained in a fuller way what aspects of this work are Surrealist. Surrealism is, as you know, a sub-genre of Modernism.