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Re: Rousseau and Sansevierias

>
>
><< Neither Rousseau nor Gauguin had any formal art training, both were
>amateurs
>  and both were consequently painters in the "primitive" style. The major
>  difference was that Gauguin actually knew his subject of his paintings
>first
>  hand. >>


Both Rousseau and Gauguin were very well aware of the Paris art scene and
made deliberate attempts to distance themselves from what was au courant at
the time, the academic style.  They were not true primitives; they sought
to re-create a childlike way of presenting the image. the predated the
Fauves, and other "renegade" styles, and were harbingers of what we now
call quaintly "modern art". they sought to be
"Naifs" but they did so from a vantage point of sophistication.
an amateur is someone who, literally does something out of love, rather
than for material gain.
Rousseau was well-enough acquainted with the art world to know Picasso and
to comment on his works, critically. As for Gaugin, his buddy Van Gogh, had
a brother who was the number one art dealer in Paris.
So neither of these men qualify as untrained amateurs in the sense that
they had no idea what they were about.

the choice of Sansevierias, in the desert, the nude, the lute, the bright
blanket against the night sky, were chosen as deliberate images of
sensuality and graphic power. It is interesting that the plant of choice is
in fact, a graphic and strong image. it is NOT a rose, a tulip, or some
other plant which had by then attained cliche status.

hermine
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