Regarding Rousseau

I am writing to make amends with a French Post-Impressionist painter. You see, the relationship between me and Henri Rousseau has long been estranged. Rousseau, a painter from the time of Monet and Renoir, Van Gogh and Gauguin, has never seemed to me to fit the pleasing category of gentle beauty that the these other men created on their canvases. Rousseau's paintings often offended me when I was younger, earning my resentment and dislike (yes, it's true, I was a very opinionated 10-year-old.) His paintings to me were full of morbidity. I found them frightening. It always angered me that his work wasn't like his counterparts'; instead of celebrating the beauty of the world, his paintings seemed to cast some sort of disturbing shadow on reality. From my very limited perception, I concluded that Rousseau was a deranged and impudent person. Up until today, I have always disliked his work. Up until today, I have always heard his name and associated it with a nightmarish ghost world.

But today, I went to MoMA. I saw one of Rousseau's most famous pieces, "The Dream", and approached it with that familiar shudder of distaste. However, I did notice that there was a plaque next to the painting, and since Rousseau has always presented me with such strong feelings, I figured that it would be worth my time to learn more about the man. What I did learn changed the way I will see his art forever.

Rousseau, whose most famous paintings are all set in jungle scenes, never set foot outside of France. This shocked me. I figured that he was a man that had had extensive contact with African peoples. And it was with this realization that my change of heart occurred. Instead of seeing his paintings as the crude and disturbing depictions of an obsessed white man, I saw them as the explorations of a curious man, a true traveler, a person aching to know the world beyond his own. If he had never been to Africa, the place was obviously imbued with a certain sense of opulent mystery to him. This explains the exaggerated exoticness of his paintings.

I see Rousseau in a new light: a seeker rather than a detractor. To me, Rousseau's extensive dealing with his personal unknown was a cry of desperation, his earnest grasping at that which he yearned for but couldn't understand. I feel a connection to him now, actually.

Because what he really was was a dreamer.

"The Dream" by Henri Rousseau, 1910.