Artist of the Month: Lisa Yuskavage.

Hi guise! Happy Halloween!

Man Halloweens are so much fun xD I have to wait until saturday though, for my friend's Halloween p-a-r-t-Y.
Wow it's also getting kinda cold here in Helsinki. We even had a little bit of snow on my birthday O_o It's been a while since it snowed on my birthday. It was really truly a wonderful day =^_^=

I'm feeling somewhat stressed out X_x I have been doing nothing, but working hard for the past month. I barely have time to workout, or rest. But I shouldn't complain, you see couple weeks ago I got a call from London, from the Academy of Freelance Makeup. They had reviewed my application and called to tell me that I was eligible for the Total Pro course that I wanted to take. Hence I'm moving to London shortly after christmas! =D The course starts in early January and ends in early February (yes it's only 4 weeks) . I'm so excited! I can't wait to go back to UK. So I'm in a hurry to earn more money to pay for the rest of the course fee + I'm saving the rest for London. Hence after doing long hours at work, I barely have enough energy to workout or put out artist reviews...However, octobre's artist is a juicy one. WOOOPS! I'm still studying french ;D

Half family 1999.

It's yet another artist who paints nudes. Well Jasper Goodall doesn't exactly paint, but we see a lot of naked women in his work as well. Because his work is more cartoonish than realistic, there is no way I'd feel embarrassed or shocked whilst looking at even his most explicit pieces.
However, when I look at the works of Lisa Yuskavage...I can feel a red, hot colour rising on my cheeks.

Unlike her name suggest, Lisa Yuskavage was born in Pennsylvania US in 1962. When I first heard her name, I immediately assumed that she was from Eastern Europe. I was wrong (but it's good to review an American artist for a change). She studied at Tyler School of Art which I guess is part of the Temple University in Philadelphia. She graduated in 1984 as a Bachelor of Fine Art and two years later she got her MFA from Yale University. After that Yuskavage proceed to work on her art.   

In 1990 she had a solo show at Pamela Auchino Gallery in New York. Her paintings at the time were small and featured partially veiled upper backs of women. Even though she had painted them beautifully, Yuskavage said that it was the topic that didn't please her. In one of her interviews she said that finding a perfect topic had become an issue for her. So shortly after the solo show, she took a break from painting that lasted well over a year. During this time, she came to find her topic. She switched her women from coy to promiscuous and made them face the viewer.  She calls this new direction "kinky sfumatos," (yes thay's a word, sfumato: In painting and drawing: a misty indistinct effect obtained by gradually blending together areas of different colour or tone.) where she utilizes her technique and skills to give birth to subversional images. One of her first new paintings "The Gifts" delivered just that. It is a dark and haunted image of a pleading girl with flowers in her mouth, her hands are behind her back and her bare bosom is on display. For some reason, this painting gives me the creeps. There's so much emotion in her eyes that it makes my emotions bounce. I go from pitying her to being scared for her. I don't know what's going to happen to her. It creeps me out to imagine any girl in this kind of situation. It's a scary painting. Never the less, this painting alone is an indication of Yuskavage's artistic brilliance. 

After several years of relying solely on her imagination, Yuskavage started working on small clay sculptures. Which then led her to found photographs. But then she started to focus on her paintings again. Within two decades, Yuskavage has established her place in the art world, thrilling and shocking her viewers and critics around the world. Yuskavage says that dissatisfaction and boredom are deadly, but also important sources for her. Evidently she gets easily bored, meaning that she has to stay extremely interested to produce art. "Every painting has to really do something new for me" she says in one of her interviews. For over two decades she has been pushing the sexual envelope towards more commonplace in contemporary art. I guess she is also breaking the barrier of  the notion of what a woman artist is entitled to do. Her painting style may be very traditional in fine art terms, but it's up to you to decide whether her subject really truly is innovative, or just a bait to collect viewers. Since 2005 Yuskavage has been represented by David Zwirner gallery in New York. This is what Zwirner has to say about Yuskavage:

"Over the past two decades, she has developed her own genre of the female nude: lavish, erotic, cartoonish, vulgar, angelic young women cast within fantastical landscapes or dramatically lit interiors. They appear to occupy their own realm while narcissistically contemplating themselves and their bodies. Rich, atmospheric skies frequently augment the psychologically-charged mood, further adding to the impression of theatricality and creative possibility." David Zwirner

On with the paintings. 'Half family' came after 'The Gifts', which was Yuskavage's first 'obscene' nude. These two have nearly 8 years between them, so 'Half family' has that Rococoish colour spectrum that Yuskavage moved to work on after 'The Gifts '. 'Half family' is a sort of an icon now, because Kate Moss posed for W magazine 'dressed' like the girl in the painting. Actually the photo looked like something David LaChapelle would have produced, a really stripped down LaChappelle photo that is. But nope, wasn't him. Still there must be something very modern about the painting because it had to be recreated years later, and the girl posing for the photo just had to be a world famous supermodel. 'Half family' is a beautiful painting and colourwise it reminds me of Rococo paintings done in the mid 1800's. I mean seriously, look at that talent! The colours are so beautiful! There's energy and movement on the background, and the girl's proportions are all correct. I also like her hair very much and how the wind is blowing it across her face in a carefree manner. Initially there is something really childlike and sweet about the background of the painting. Those soft pinks and yellows give so much light to the otherwise dull background. But the matte blue and grey clouds have an air of storm to them, and combined with the soft green grass the landscape almost seems to be portraying an upcoming storm. The giant girl however is totally unaffected by the upcoming storm, she is too busy oogling her body/ weird panties. Here is an example of that narcissistic contemplation Zwirner wrote about in his review. The girls in Yuskavage'a paintings always seem too busy to notice anything because they are too busy studying themselves. There are a few exceptions when: 1. The girls are looking at the viewer, and  2. They are looking at each others. 

As for the theme and style of this painting, I give it a 5 out of 5. The whole image would suggest that this is a coming of age image. Even though to me it looks like there is a storm coming, the soft pinks and yellows suggest sun setting and the flowers on the girl's feet could symbol virginity and her womanhood. Meaning that the image is almost like a good-bye to her innocent (or maybe it's not innocent at all) childhood. Well it depends on how you wanna interpret this painting. But you have to admit, it is a brilliant painting. It is beautiful to look at, and I imagine many critics (and viewers) have had a lot of fun trying to crack this painting open. There are a few directions you can take whilst looking at 'Half family'. First of all, the viewer has to decide whether they can actually look upon this painting at all. There is a part of me that wants to shy away from Yuskavage's paintings because they are so naughty. As much as I love this painting, I would hide it from my parents when ever they'd come to visit me. Normally I wouldn't do that, but this time, it's different. My parents' view on this painting would be totally different from my view, and I know they'd judge me for wanting to put something like this on my wall. In 'Half family' I see an adopted girl, who came to live with her relatives after her parents passed away. Now she is slowly coming of age and is very curious about herself. Her relatives, of course, don't approve of her new found sexuality and the way she experiments with it. She is the naughty, promiscuous niece or cousin who can't be stopped. Which probably is why she chooses to act out her promiscuity, because she knows it annoyes her caregivers and because she knows that they dislike her for being that way. And that suits her just fine because she doesn't care, it's too much fun for her this way. This is what 'Half family' looks like to me, but I know my parents would most likely label this as porn, and give me a long lecture about how inappropriate the painting is and why I'm so naughty for wanting to put it up on my wall. (>=)). I adore the romantic colour scale, and the girl is exceptionally well painted! It has been a while since I have seen a contemporary artist who can paint this well. Yuskavage has recieved many thanks for her ability to paint like the Old Masters. She says she went through a lot to learn to paint Fine Art 'properly' and I can't see anyone who could paint as well as Yuskavage (except maybe Royo). I think that there are actually two parts to this painting, there's the real girl and then there is the fantasy girl in a romantic landscape. It depends on which one you want to focus on. Even though I can appreciate the image as a whole,and to me she seems more like a fantasy than reality, I can't get over the fact that her panties are way to small for her! I mean they are squeezing the living daylight out of her bum. Girl, your balloon/candy panties are awesome, but you have outgrown them!

Teresa and Lauren 2008

There seems to be a constant play between the characters in Yuskavage's paintings. It's kinda like a dialogue of 'Look at me, now don't look at me but if you look at me I'm going to look back at you'. Yuskavage has this to say about her girls: "If you stare at me, I'm going to stare back, but at the same time if you stare at me I'm going to disapear. But I'm also going to assert myself and make you feel really uncomfortable". And about her method she says "I'm constantly playing with who's the top and who's the bottom in the painting". Oh, Yuskavage quotes her work beautifully! She knows her work so well and she knows what her work is trying to say and why. I personally totally get what she is saying with that top/bottom remark. It's not just about the girls in the paintings playing with the viewer, it's reality. I don't know about you, but I sometimes have a moment of insecurity and I'm not quite sure whether I want boys to look at me or not. (and why not girls too. Girls look at me regardless, and especially in summer they give me really nasty looks. What?! I workout, I don't eat junk food, I'm slim, so no need to look so sour! I work hard to keep my figure!). I'm such a dizzy person anyway that I wouldn't notice if a bunch of boys walked after my heels, drooling all the way. But then there are those special occasions when I want boys to look at me, and then it's power play. "I'm going to stare back at you if you stare at me". And then there are those times, when I get insecure and the game changes and I'm no longer on the top. I digress. I'm just saying that I understand what Yuskavage's work is trying to say. There is something very human about the characters in Yuskavage's paintings, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. "Teresa and Lauren" is a great example of this look-at-me-don't-look-at-me dialogue. Unlike some of her other paintings, this does not feauture any nature. Unless you want to read the green colour is a symbol of nature (which I don't). I however find this colour choice very similar to Salvador Dali's 'Soldier take warning'. Did Yuskavage use all green in "Teresa and Lauren" on purpose or was it something she just prefered? Because if this is a some kind of ode to Dali's painting then I can't help but chuckle (*chuckle*), because Dali's painting is a warning to soldiers not to sleep with prostitutes because they carry sexually transmitted diseases. So are we to assume that Teresa and Lauren have venereal disease? I guess that's up to you to decide. To me, they both look a little too inviting. But on second thought, I think I'll just go with my first idea and say that these two are just having a sleepover. Notice how Yuskavage pictures her girls, full, voluptuous breasts and bums. Or small breasts and voluptuous bums. Love it or hate it, it looks interesting.

Piggyback Ride 2008

 In her earlier series 'Bad Babies' Yuskavage's goal was to speak about shame and the inability to hide it. I think that's what Yuskavage's more tender and innocent paintings are about. 'Piggyback Ride' fits in to this category. Even though the naked girl in this painting doesn't seem to be ashamed of nakedness, whilst her friend is fully clothed, it does speak about that innocence of feminity that dominates some of Yuskavage's paintings. In a way 'Piggyback Ride' has a kind of fairytale-esque thing going on. Fairytales are all about linking the hero/heroine to nature, and to me, 'Piggyback Ride' looks a little Cinderella-ish. I reviewed Yuskavage the first time couple years ago when I was studying fairytales and creating my own fairytales (ah Rose Soldier, we have many adventures ahead of us, nee). After two years, this paintings still looks like a girl hitting puperty. She is somewhere in between her old, childish self and a new self that has began to understand her body and sexuality (which evidently happened to Cinderella). She wants to be seen differently from now on and she actually wants to show off her growing body. In my class, most girls started to wear tight pants and shirts to show off their growing tits and round asses to attract attention. And this happened when we were 11 or 12. But for some girls, it's embarrassing too. I'll tell you secret, I was dizzy until the end. I didn't wear tight pants and shirts when I was 12, that part of puberty hit me when I was about 14. 'Piggyback Ride' shows us that these two girls are in very different places, the naked one is alright with her body whilst the girl behind her is more modest and perhaps will never be one of those girls I just described. Rather than being exposed she represents the more traditional female image, body covered from gazes. To me, this painting is a manifestation of the two sides of the virginal female character in Fairytales.

I have to talk about the nature in Yuskavage's paintings. Nature and forests are especially close to my heart because I grew up in Finland, and our land is pretty much like a big forest. Yuskavage does a good job in mixing erotica and nature, and she paints landscapes really well too. In fairytales, nature is a huge factor in the stories for it is usually treated as a set, but it also gives vast amounts of sybolism for the stories. 'Piggyback Ride' takes place in a lake scenery where we have two girls, one of them is dressed, one of them is not. It is so cute how they have formed a link with their arms. The brunette has her right arm around the blonde's neck and her left hand is on her waist, holding the blonde's right hand. Because of the warm skin tones, I didn't see the link at first, but looking at it closer, together they are forming like a link or a protective space, if you will. The nakedness of the blonde girl combined with the scenery reminds me of primitive times when people were more united with nature (I'm thinking about Disney's Pocahontas now..). Now we have enstranged ourselves from nature because we don't need to fend ourselves constantly anymore. Of course there comes a time when nature strikes hard, but I'm saying that because some of us are living comfortable lives, we don't have to be worried about how to get food if winter comes early this year, or if there is a pack of wolves on the move. But perhaps this seems too primitive. What I'm trying to say is that every single Yuskavage painting that features both girls and nature, has a distinct link between them. In 'Piggyback Ride' that link seems to be puberty, nature is always there whether we like it or not. It's our nature to grow because that's what all nature's 'products' do. And in this case, the colours are nearly melancholic, because Yuskavage's intention is to make the viewer sad for the girl who's about to go through puperty. Again, there is a setting sun and after that, a new era begins. I don't like the colours in this painting, as much as I liked them in 'Half family', but once again this is exceptionally well executed. Personally I think Yuskavage's nature-and-girls paintings are much more beautiful and interesting than for example the 'Pie face' paintings. It's much more interesting to see girls posing obscenely in the hills than see portraits of them with their faces full of custard.

Walking the dog 2009

"Something usually sexualizes you. You may not even remember what it was - it can be a single comment." I think the girls in the rest of her paintings are promiscuous for the sake of being promiscuous (and nasty). They are depictions of the woman-child, of a girl who became aware of her sexuality, perhaps too young, and is now taking full advantage of it. In my mind, the girls in Yuskavage's "naughty" paintings are those girls who showed the guy who shouted "show me your tits!" their tits. I haven't done that myself, but I understand that one wants to be naughty for naughtiness' sake. I think there is really something to Yuskavage's vision of the woman-child. Personally I'm not quite sure whether the woman-child is a young girl like Lolita, who became a woman a very young age and is taking full advantage of her youth and promiscuity? Or is the woman-child a woman who has a somewhat child-like body and still has that innocent state of mind only children have?
 
For me, Yuskavage's paintings seem more obscene than for example some of the obscenest pieces of Luis Royo (and he has done some pretty obscene drawings!). The bashful side of me wouldn't put these up on my wall. But then again, the part of me that likes all things sexy, totally would. Seeing girls so fetishized and objectified would make anyone frown. However, it's not all that. I personally don't feel that Yuskavage's pieces are porn or Playboy images like many have suggested. I like to think that there is more to her images than 'titillation', shocking people for shockings sake. And painting obscene sex-like scenes because sex sells. Sex is just the cover, there's actually a lot of symbolism tucked in between the cheeks of Yuskavage's girls (if you want to think it like that). There is a part of me that would feel coy and ashamed if I went to see these in a gallery. But then the rest of me would just say that these are interesting paintings, they are sexy and exceptionally well painted, that there has to be more than just tits and pussies to them. One critic said that "to have the whole Yuskavage thing wrapped up in a package of high end gallery with critical imprimatur is what felt awkward and strange." Yuskavage had this to say "that was precisely the feeling I was going for". In the end, just like with Jasper Goodall and Luis Royo, it's up to you to decide what to make of 'the Yuskavage experience'. Me, I like it a lot.

I hope you enjoyed me review on Lisa Yuskavage, this was a juicy one indeed. Next month I'll give you my last book review for now. I know I said that I'd do 5, but I'll be really busy in December + December is already winter, and the book thing was just for autumn, for now.

Thanks for reading and see you next month!
Cheers!

A.P

Autumn book club: Män som hatar kvinnor (The girl with the dragon tattoo).

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Artist of the Month: Henri Rousseau.

Hi guise! 

September is over already? I have been so busy that I didn't even notice.

Something quite embarrassing happened to me on friday (28^th). I'm a part-time waitress and on friday I had my very first French couple. What made the situation embarrassing for me was that I could remember how take their order in french, even though I have been studying french for 3 weeks!!! Q_Q of course the couple didn't know this, but I was just so frustrated and embarrassed that I didn't know how to ask what they'd like to drink/eat in french. And we had just done restaurant conversation in class on the day before! *sigh* Naturally when I went to bed that night I suddenly said to myself: Qu'est ce que vous voulez prenez? Even though it means 'what would you like to have?' I think it would have sufficed. But yeah, the situation was all over already.

The Equatorial Jungle 1909.

This month's artist is Henri Rousseau, a French fine artist who is the established father of Naïvism. Soft yet vivid colours, exaggerated flora, highlighted backgrounds are classic Rousseau. Naturally Rousseau didn't know this at the time, but he had began to establish the characteristics for naïve art Sadly Rousseau wasn't appreciated in his own time, people didn't regard his paintings as art. Just like with other really appreciated artists, Rousseau's genious wasn't discovered until years and years after his death. And now we are left to analyze what naïve art is about, what Rousseau was about.

Naïvism is a movement that is devoted to simple childlike images in subject matter and technique. In the past naïve art was hardly considered as art because it was practised by non-professional artists or children. However Henri Rousseau showed that people who practiced Naïvism had their own expressive vision. Rousseau was born in May 21^st 1844 in Laval France. Unlike many other Fine Artists Rousseau was completely self-taught. Rousseau admitted that he had received some advice from Academic painters, but other than that he had no education in art. Rousseau attentend the Laval High School as a day student, but he switched to a boarding school after he and his family had to leave Laval upon the seizure of their house. As a student Rousseau was mediocre, but he did rather well in drawing and music and won many prizes. After high school, in the early 1860's, Rousseau began to study law and worked for a lawyer, but later he "attempted a small perjury" and moved to serve in the army for four years. After his father died Rousseau along his mother moved to Paris in 1868. To support his mother Rousseau became a customs officer. He was married twice, and with his first wife had six children (only one survived). In 1871, he was appointed as a tax collector on goods entering Paris. It took Rousseau almost fourty years to start painting seriously and it took nine years more until he could retire from his day job and become a full time artist. What I find encouraging is that Rousseau wasn't one of those artists who got famous really young. Rousseau had a family to support and unfortunately art wasn't going to bring in the dough. So he did what was logical and got a job.

Self-portrait 1890

When Rousseau gradually began to paint he first painted portraits of people, cityscapes and everyday tasks and activities. Rousseau's paintings of Paris are especially interesting. From 1886 Rousseau began to show his work in the Salon des Indépendants regularly. He enjoyed some success and his paintings were noticed and commented on, but the public wasn't really into his portraits and landscapes. Being able to exhibit his work in the Salon, Rousseau started to familiarize himself with the works of innovative artists. He came to know the museums in Paris and visited exhibitions. He read many books about the artworks of all eras and familiarized himself with how-to-paint manuals. Through photographic reproduction he got to study various landscapes and locations. While another review said that Rousseau's city- and landscapes are rather restricted and lack scale, I find them very charming. They may not be as detailed as his jungle paintings, but they look decorative. I personally think that people shouldn't dismiss them because they look childish, but see the elaboration Rousseau expresses. The technique is the same and the colours are very similar between the jungle paintings and the city paintings, the only distinction is the colour white that Rousseau used a lot in his city- and landscape paintings. Rousseau's "Self-portrait" from 1890 looks fantastic. It has that authenticity and wonder every artist aspires for. It is a given that the painting looks very monotone, but if you study it closely you'll see that Rousseau's knowledge of dimension and proportions are in tact. If you remove the giant Rousseau from the scene the proportions seem to look alright. In his city-and landscape paintings Rousseau showed that his independent studying paned out. Although he neglected a few rules concerning shadows and debth, but other than that we can see that Rousseau knew how to paint 'right'. It just wasn't his style. I just have to respect him for not getting in involved with all the academics and did what he wanted to do. In this painting, the dimenssion would look alright if Rousseau hadn't distorted it by adding a character that changed the whole look. It's Rousseau himself that changes the look of the painting. In 'The Flamingoes' it's the giant flowers that change the scene. Even though the whole image should now be perversely wrong both of these paintings are 'saved' by Rousseau's genuine painting style. However, the change doesn't happen automatically because the characters literally amalgamate into the scene so it doesn't seem odd that there are giant people or giant flowers in the scene. In fact the giant Rousseau and the flowers seem to be quite at home in the scenes. 
 

Naïvism is uniquely different from any other artistic concept, yet it demonstrates similar arrangement as inspirational and coherent as any other art genre. This is one of the reasons I like naïvism so much, it's so versatile. You see, naïvism usually looks like it didn't take a genious to make such 'a simple' image, but in truth naïve art requires a lot arranging and insipration before it can be executed. Not to mention achieving the right look and mood can be tricky. Naïve art takes insipration from the real world, but fantasy and the artist's imagination are also important factors. Hence one could say that subject is the most influential factor in Naïvism. Rousseau had never been to a jungle or a desert in his life, yet he made such vivid and accurate paintings of them (within Naïvism terms of course) . Rousseau's jungles came from illustrated books, the Zoo and the botanical gardens in Paris. He would spend hours sketching the animals or the plants. He met soldiers who had survived the French expedition to Mexico and listened to their stories about the subtropical country they'd exprerienced. (who said you personally had to be there to understand its beauty ^_^ Although, I'd like to go there anyway). ''Use your imagination'' could as well belong to naïve artists, because that's what they (we, am I naïve too...) do.

The Flamingoes 1907.

The first condition for the practice of Naïvism is not to wilfully aim at being naïve. Naïve art cannot be imitated because the results would be as fake as, for example, a copy of abstract art. Trust me, if you are sincere with your style, it's really difficult to try to copy someone else (yes I know that there are artists who specifically copy old master's works, but that's a whole different genre). The beauty of a true naïve artist is their need to paint, arising from their soul, not from their skills. It is based on the necessity to express the self, a necessity which is much stronger than the artist's skills of creation. The old cynic in me would say that this is just an excuse bad artists use to mask their lack of painting skills, but I create naïve art myself so I understand what painting from the necessity means. I'd like to quote Mr. Carl Jung now “One might say that naïve painters have certain pictorial ideas circulating in their subconscious which quite spontaneously demand to be given release”. Jung is certainly right. To Rousseau it wasn't important for his paintings to look accurate, they were the expression of his needed for release and necessity to put his vision across. While some of the paintings were carefully mapped out the vision was still the most important factor of the painting process. In Rousseau's paintings we can see the similar accuracy of details on the background and the foreground. Some naïve artist cherish that 'children's finger paintings' look more than others, but I believe Rousseau was more into finding a style that lingered somewhere between child-like and modern (make note that at that time, there were many rising art genres, including Impressionism. Remember to check my review on Claude Monet). Many things were happening in the arts at that time, and yet Rousseau's work managed to shock people. His flat and childish style was ridiculed by many critics. I can imagine how it must have been like for him to be so sincere with his work and yet nobody understood it. Well that's not it, people at the time didn't like Rousseau's painting's because they weren't accustomed to his look. It's that irony again that great artists are only appreciated after their dead. Never the less, some of the observers thougt that even though Rousseau painted like a child, he showed sophistication and authenticity with his technique. While 'interviewing' my BFF he gave me a two syllable description on Rousseau: 'original genious'. This shocked me a little because I didn't expect him to give a positive review. As a former rookie artist himself, I didn't expect him to like naïve art because I was under the impression that he only valued, like art art, like accurate art, trees look like trees and people look like people etc. But after this he went back to being himself and said that Rousseau's work was a typical counter reaction for the late 1800's narrow-minded academics.

Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surpris!) 1981.

In 1891 Rousseau's “Tiger in a tropical storm (Surpris!)” was exhibited in the Salon des Indépendants and he received his first serious review. The young artist Félix Vallotton wrote: "His tiger surprising its prey ought not to be missed; it's the alpha and omega of painting." What's so charming about this particular painting is the scene itself. This is one of my favourite's from Rousseau. The critics didn't like it for it lacked in debth, but I don't see it like that. “Surpris!” may seem monotone, but it expresses Rousseau's sense of colours really well. Rousseau didn't mean to paint realistically, what matter was how he envisioned and executed his paintings. The rain in the painting is exeptionally well made. This painting (and many other Rousseau paintings) was built up meticulously in layers. He used a large number of green shades to capture the lush exuberance of the jungle. It's difficult to tell just by looking at that image, but I think in reality we could be able to see all those layers (Oil paint can get very thick the more layers you add) The rain in the painting is extraordinary. It took me a while to figure out how Rousseau acchieved that effect. I knew he couldn't have swipped a large paint brush across the wet paint, because that would have damaged the finished layers. I later read that Rousseau devised his own method for depicting that lashing rain. He trailed strands of silver paint diagonally across the canvas, a satin-like technique William-Adolphe Bouguereau used in his paintings. That is ingenious! Who said you can only use paint brushes.

While naïve art is mostly about simple everyday experiences, it remains uninfluenced by common art traditions. In both the artist comes to grips with their personal experiences which encourages them to paint pictures that mirror their memories, desires and vision. However naïve artist is specifically ignoring such attributes as perspective and proportions because the impact of the picture as a whole excists solely in the mind of the artist. Naïve artist's demonstrates instinctive and sometimes surprising colour choices. I, for one, do not like bold colour combinations, like the ones Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso used. Some artists detest bright colours because they find them at odds with the scene they are creating. Some artists have no problem with colours because they know how to control them and how to achieve the desired look. And then there are those who simply enjoy all colours, and see the possibilities they offer. This is precisely the area in which the naïve artist most often displays his/her inborn talent. Rousseau's palette, for example, is a mixture of earthly colours. I discovered that many art critics seemed to think that the gentle colours were symbolic to dreams. In “Surpris!” we see how the murky-earth tones create such light yet expressive painting. Whilst in “The Flamingoes” we see a much more sensitive yet playful side of Rousseau's sense of colours. ”The Flamingoes” for example has a totally different impact on me than “Surpris!”. “The Flamingoes” is a sensitive and happy painting and I especially like the warm pink Rousseau used on the flowers. The murky pink (almost purple) flamingoes add a nice contrast to the scene. For some reason the giant flowers don't look out of place at all. The palm trees and the people on the background make this a realistic scene and not at all fantasy like. If this painting was ment to be a dream, to me it doesn't seem so at all. To me it looks like this place could excists in reality.

The Sleeping Gypsy 1897.

It is said that  in the world the naïve artist lives in bears the stamp of narrative authenticity. Hence we could assume that Rousseau's paintings are fantasies of his. His jungle paintings especially express great sense of storyline. The story isn't complicated nor scandalous, but rather descriptions of what goes on in the jungle. “Surpris!” expresses both movement and story because in the tiger's eyes we can see the surprise and rage. The original story is that the tiger is about to pounce on its prey. But to me it looks like the flashing lightning scared the tiger, by revealing its hiding place. "The Equatorial Jungle" to me looks like it was made by Tove Jansson. Those animals looks so much like some of the characters in the Moomins, and I swear that that painting would make a perfect Moomin story! It looks so mysterious yet darling. Not at all threatening even though it's a jungle, and jungles are supposed to be scary because all kinds of ferocious animals live there. But those two don't look ferocious to me, just mysterious. Perhaps this jungle was ment to be a dream too. The soft colours surely suggest it. I indeed think that the whole Tove-Jansson-look gives this painting a dream-like atmosphere, and which I, by the way, don't get from Rousseau's other paintings. Even if Rousseau ment to tell a specific story with this painting or with "Surpris!", he was kind enough to leave room for interpretations. “The Sleeping Gypsy” is a different story too. It gives me a totally different feeling than the other paintings. To me it seems like a gypsy has fallen asleep and he/she dreams about a lion coming to investigate him/her. OR my other interpretation is that the gypsy is a sleep and a lion has come to see what the gypsy is doing. It sounds much cuter ^_^ The dark colours were a surprising choice, since so far Rousseau had only used soft earthly colours. Yet these soft yet really dark colours seem to fit into Rousseau's style. I'm not sure if this was just an experiment, but this happens to be one of Rousseau's most famous paintings. It seems to combine that dream like state and what Naïvism is. In Naïvism the images are narratives of sort, which then carry the viewer away. If I remember right, one of the books I read listed which Rousseau paintings were dreams or imaginary. But I think it's much more fun to leave it up to the viewer to decide whether any of Rousseau's paintings are dreams.

As I said before, naïve art cannot be copied for it comes from within. Rousseau demonstrated this in choice of colours and subject. To me Rousseau's landscapes seem like they are the dreams and the jungles are real. And perhaps this is because his inspiration came from stories he heard from the soldiers. Naïve artists live in their dream lands and conjure images by their own fancy. The paintings created after those images, illustrate the lives and experiences of the person who painted them, as all naïve art does. 

I hope you enjoyed my review on Henri Rousseau. 
Thank you for reading and see you later!
Cheers!

A.P