EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E
Sexing the Canvas: Art and Gender
Jeanette Hoorn, The University of Melbourne
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C O U R S E L E C T U R E Henri Rousseau's The Sleeping Gypsy Notes taken on March 1, 2018 by Edward Tanguay |
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The Sleeping Gypsy (1897)
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a mysterious work
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has similar themes with The Dream
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a recumbent female figure occupies the focal point
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part of an exotic landscape
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exists in harmony with the animal world
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the full moon rises high in the sky
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in both paintings there is a dark-skinned musician
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differences
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gypsy
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a wanderer
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carries a staff
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pitcher of water
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musical instrument
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an artist and an outsider
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perhaps like Rousseau himself
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was not accepted by the art world
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except for Gaugin and Picasso
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Rousseau described it: "A wandering Negress, a mandolin player, sleeps in deep exhaustion, her jug beside her. A lion happens to pass that way, and sniffs at her, but does not devour her. The scene takes place in a completely dry desert. The Gypsy is dressed in oriental fashion."
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the sleeping gypsy
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perhaps she's dreaming of the lion in the river
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as Jean Cocteau suggested
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deeply enigmatic, mysterious and puzzling
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the base of the lion's main evoke the lines of the woman's hair
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the bare foreground is mirrored by the bare background
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the two plains divided by softly drawn mountains and a river
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perhaps the river of Lethe
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both the woman and the lion are separated from the mountains by the river
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her bright robe enhances the beauty of the sea
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relation to the senses
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woman evokes music and pleasure
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the full moon creates an overall sense of the romantic
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but the romanticism is edged with strangeness
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emphasizes the poetic quality of the work
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the painting takes us back to a far distant imaginary time, long before the modern period
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where human and animal lived in relative peace in the natural world and shared common spaces
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Darwin
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humans and animals have more in common than previously thought
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both experience a similar range of feelings and emotions
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structure
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almost sculptural
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nothing moves
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a strange lack of motion in Rousseau's paintings
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anticipates the surrealist's approach
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juxtapositioning unexpected objects in unfamiliar ways to create a sense of the marvelous
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frees up the viewer's mind
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creates a new space of imagining new possibilities and relationships
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the marvelous was also disorienting, gave the viewer a shock
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André Breton (1896-1966)
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Surrealist Manifesto
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described Rousseau as before the time of surrealists
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Rousseau's painting invoke a passion for otherness
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particularly in relation to the lands and peoples of the colonial empires
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the sleeping gypsy is an oriental picture of its own kind
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a poetic oriental landscape
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the gypsy is a musician
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Rousseau played the violin
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sublime
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a strong sense of boundlessness in relation to the landscape
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a sense of an endless desert
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the beauty of a sublime landscape
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surreal
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gypsy lies in a deep sleep with eyes slightly open
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robe with white frill around the collar
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as if she is a pilgrim
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the bareness of the landscape suggests a dreamscape, a theme of surrealist paintings
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freedom of imagination
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importance of desire
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shows a woman living and traveling freely according to her own desires
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desire is the soul motivating principle of the world
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arouses a desire for the free life, to find oneself
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Rousseau locates this desire in a woman, black woman, an outsider, and artist
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the painting has a strange beauty and evokes a desire to roam free from the restrictions of contemporary urban life
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this woman lives in all of us
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she represents an inner, deep-seated, human longing to live a life that is true to oneself
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the woman is painted in an extremely unusual context
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independent
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alone
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traveling on her own terms
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not sexualized at all
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she's simply beautiful in her own right
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a wanderer, living her own life, a strange, exotic being
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black women were rarely represented as subjects in their own right
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appears to live in harmony with nature
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the lion seems careful not to disturb her
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the painting can be seen as gendered
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the lion male
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the gypsy female
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if Rousseau would have painted the gypsy as a man, it would have created a different meaning
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the lion seems to be protecting her so that she can have the freedom not just to sleep but to dream
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reminds us of Mary of Egypt
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the patron saint of penitents
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born in Egypt, lived a sexually desolate life
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wandered the deserts
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befriended a religious man on her journeys
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he gave her his mantel to cover her body
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after she died, he noticed a lion standing by her body licking her feet
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the lion dug a deep grave and he buried her there
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she lies on the ground as if asleep but her eyes are partly open as if in a trance
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perhaps this is the seen of Mary's death