Henri Russo measured the heroes of his portraits with a folding meter. All my life I dreamed of being realistic, guided by the laws of academic painting, without even knowing how much more he
Henri Russo: biography
Henri-Julien-Felix Rousseau was born May 21, 1844 in Laval, the main city of the department of Mayenne. Henry was seven years old when their house was sold at auction to pay his father's debts. The family left Laval, but Henry was left to live at the school where he was studying at that time. The boy was not a child prodigy, but in singing and in arithmetic deserved rewards.
Being released from military duty as a student of the Lyceum, he nonetheless went to the army as a volunteer. Rousseau enlisted in 1864 in the 52nd Infantry Regiment. According to the Military Ministry's registration card, Rousseau served four and a half years and was discharged on July 15, 1868. In 1869, Rousseau married in Paris, Clemence Bouatar. Seven of their nine children died in infancy.
At first, Henry served with the bailiff, but a few months later he managed to find a place at the city customs, hence his nickname - "Customs officer". In the tax office, Rousseau was trusted only with the most simple instructions, such as guarding at the guard posts of defensive structures. He probably started painting around 1870. The earliest canvases that have come down to us date back to 1880. In 1885, Rousseau exhibited in a free Art Salon on the Champs Elysees his copies of paintings by old masters made in the Louvre, and his first works - Italian Dance and Sunset.
Italian dance
The 1886 painting "Carnival Evening" already contains the future features of Rousseau's individual style, the alternation of plans, the exchange of figures against the backdrop of the landscape, and a careful study of the elements of the composition. The picture aroused ridicule from the public, but true connoisseurs. When one of his friends led Pissarro to Russo's canvases, thinking of amusing himself, he surprised his companion by admiring this art, the accuracy of valeres, the richness of tones, and then he began to praise the work of the Customs officer to his acquaintances. Very soon, Rousseau became a kind of celebrity, or rather, the famous eccentric.
At the Salon of Independent Rousseau, he first exhibited in 1886. From now on, he will annually, with the exception of 1899 and 1900, exhibit his work there. His naive and immediate landscapes, views of Paris and its suburbs, genre scenes, portraits are distinguished by the conventionality of the general solution and the literal accuracy of details, flatness of forms, bright and colorful coloring.
In 1888, Russo's wife died. In 1893, Russo retired. Now he was able to fully devote himself to art. In 1895, one of the few positive responses to the work of Rousseau appeared. The critic “Mercure de France” L. Rua wrote about the painting “The War, or the Horsewoman of Discord, ” exhibited among the “independents” in 1894. “Mr. Rousseau shared the fate of many innovators. He has a rare quality in modern times - perfect originality. He is directed towards new art. Despite a number of shortcomings, his work is very interesting and testifies to his many-sided talents."
Rousseau never painted such large paintings. In 1897, the paintings “I myself, portrait-landscape” and the famous “Sleeping Gypsy” appeared. The artist was so pleased with the last work that he even offered to buy it to the mayor of Laval "I will give you a painting for an amount of 2000 to 1800 francs, because I would be happy if the memory of one of his sons remained in the city of Laval." The offer, of course, was rejected. In 1946, this canvas entered the Louvre and was estimated at 315, 000 new francs.
In 1908, Rousseau exhibited four canvases at the "independent", including the painting "Football Players". This picture is evidence that in the last years of his life the artist turned to the problems of transmission of movement. Rousseau possessed not only the talent of the painter. In 1886 he was awarded an honorary diploma of the Literary and Musical Academy of France for the waltz composed by him, which the author performed in the Beethoven Hall. In 1889, Rousseau wrote a vaudeville in three acts and ten scenes, “Visiting the World Exhibition, ” and in 1899 creates a drama in 5 acts and 19 scenes, “Revenge of the Russian Orphan”. At the end of August 1910, the artist injured his leg, but did not attach any importance to it, meanwhile, the wound was festering, and gangrene began. Russo died on September 2, 1910. Rousseau did not have students, but he became the founder of a new direction in art
Path to painting
The son of a tinsmith. In his youth he served in the army, where he played the saxophone; after demobilization he entered the civil service in the customs department of Paris (whence his nickname - Customs officer) came from. He started painting at the age of about forty, and after retiring in 1885 he devoted himself entirely to art, earning extra money as private violin lessons. Rousseau's acquaintances were ironic in his studies, however, unusual bright canvases attracted the attention of the famous painters of impressionism - Camille Pissarroi Paul Signac. Rousseau was invited to participate in the exhibitions of the Salon of Independents, where the color of the avant-garde artistic intelligentsia of Paris gathered. Professionals from Montmartre were carried away by the "naive" world of their fellow self-taught, because Rousseau's primitiveism, denying academic tradition, protest against civilization, and poetic authenticity of images met their needs for a radical renewal of the palette, drawing, motives - all attitude to art. In the 1890s, Rousseau became friends with leading poets and artists of the new era - Guillaume Apollinaire, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Leger.
Sleeping gypsy
