A Carnival Evening with Rousseau

Henri Rousseau, Carnival Evening (1886)

Henri Rousseau was an autodidact, or self-taught, French Post-Impressionist painter. Although most widely known for the elaborate jungle scenes of his later years, Rousseau was also adept at a style of painting that he coined himself called "portrait landscape." Carnival Evening is one of those portrait landscapes. It's dark, extremely detailed trees and branches starkly contrast with the brightness of the moon and the lone couple in the foreground.  This shocking contrast immediately draws the viewer's attention to that lone couple who almost seem to be glowing from within. Looking closer the couple can now be recognized to be wearing festive carnival costumes. Upon even further investigation, and possibly some research, the characters can be identified as Pierrot and Columbine. 'Why?' is the question on most peoples minds. Most critics were confused by Rousseau's works and often ridiculed it, writing him off as a naive or primitive painter.   Essayist Guy Davenport observed that "until we are willing to enter Rousseau's world, we are going to misread all of his paintings."  Carnival Evening expertly demonstrates Rousseau's "unique chromatic imagination, his proto-surrealist ability to juggle unexpected pictorial elements, and his untutored but brilliant skill in the stylization of forms."Rousseau simply could not paint the same way the academic painters did for one reason: he frankly did not see what they did. While they were content to continuously paint the same thing, things Rousseau saw were transformed in his mind into the visions that he transferred to canvas. Visions that were rarely met without strong emotional responses; be it amusement, confusion or admiration.

Source:  Christopher Riopelle, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections (1995), p. 202.