| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Rousseau

Page history last edited by Thomas Kutzli 3 years, 5 months ago

 

 

Indeed a very special man.

 

 

• 21.5. 1844

• + 2.9.1910

 

Life

 

Henri was born 1844 in the small town of Laval in the northwest of France. His father Julien was a plumber. His mother gave birth to him into a century of antagonisms. Four years after his birth only barricades of revolution reappeared in the streets of Paris, this time as a foreboding of class struggles.

As we try to show with the example of painting, modern times just started to undermine all conventions and certainties. Impressionism as vague appearance would soon vanish to the disillusionments of Nihilism. Cézanne created never seen color compositions, but both Van Gogh and Gauguin didn't find their paradise in it all in the wide world between Languedoc and Pacific Islands. Picasso broke with old painting traditions by picking up African styles. Cubism was not long to come.

All this, though not found by deduction, was showing up in Rousseau’s life and paintings too.

He was rather dull at school but he loved lyrics and music. From 1880 his name is not to be found in school lists anymore.

Alfred Jarry - he was born in Laval too – and Guilleaume Apollinaire very soon made a legend out of his life. It did not take much. Because from his early days on Rousseau, the customs inspector (as his nickname was), lived a poor, simple, but quite fantastic life. And even if much details can never be proved they are told again and again. As an example: in his time as soldier he went to war in Mexico. In fact he appeared at court in uniform. But was he only a clarinet player in a Paris regiment? After military service he managed to be employed at customs, where from his nickname came. He married with a simple girl of 15 years, Clémence, which until her early death gave birth to nine children. From these only Julia survived her father. Rousseau’s granddaughter Jeanne lives/lived(?) as a piano teacher in Cherbourg.

After the death of his wife Rousseau retired from customs. Even earlier he had started painting and though his lifestyle was always simple he had a deep desire for being appreciated for his paintings. The first one who understood his paintings was Alfred Jarry, through whom he got to know Paul Gauguin. In Gauguins atelier he met Mallarmé, Strindberg and Degas. Soon he was exhibiting himself at the “Salon des Independents”. Important for him was his friendship with Guillaume Apollinaire, through him he got within the artistic avantgarde. Meanwhile he taught the violin. Imagine his student concerts in his humble rooms with among students and their parents Apollinaire, Delaunay (which became his true friend), Picasso, Braque, Max Jacob, Vlaminck, Brancusi, Marie Laurencin, Philippe Soupault and others! Lise and Oto Bihalij-Merin wrote about that: “From the perspective of his unfit poverty Rousseau was projecting his infantile daydreams full of beauty and honor onto his canvases. He imagined so strongly, that he got beyond the borders of reality and was himself sure, that the president of the republic had invited him to dinner, but the guardians withdraw him because of his mean suits….”

And Apollinaire:” Few painters have been mocked at as he was in his lifetime, and only few responded with more candidness…” In fact he was one of the very seldom people of pure heart. Legendary is the banquet, Picasso arranged in 1908 for Rousseau in his atelier Bâteau Lavoir in Montmartre: it was one of the first happenings and half the village of Montmartre participated. Gertrude Stein, who was present with her mate Alice B.Toklas, remembers: “Guilleaume Apollinaire stood up and made a solemn speech, which ended in a half sung refrain everybody knew: ‘the paintings of that Rousseau’

 

Henri Rousseau died the 2nd of September 1910 in the Hospital Necker in Paris. Seven friends stood at his grave: the painters Paul Signac and Otiz de Zarate, Robert Delaunay and his wife Sonja Terk, the sculptor Brancusi, Rousseaus house owner Armand Queval and Guilleaume Apollinaire, who wrote the epitaph Brancusi put on the tombstone:

 

“We salute you

Gentile Rousseau you can hear us

Delaunay his wife Monsieur Queval and myself

Let our luggage pass duty free through the gates

of heaven

We will bring you brushes paints and canvas

That you may spend your sacred leisure in the

light of truth Painting
as you once did my portrait

Facing the stars"

 

Not much people had such a funeral.....

 

 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.