Take a Picture ….

1. Take a Picture …. Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!) Henri Rousseau, 1891 Rosmond Milner

2. First impressions count describe the painting in ONE word

3. Look for clues in the picture • Subject • Style • Composition • Colour • Mood

4. Looking at pictures: visual literacy • Subject • Is it formal, informal, a portrait, a landscape, a still-life, heroic, exotic, fantastic, ordinary/everyday?

5. Looking at pictures: visual literacy • Style • Is it naïve, childlike, primitive, stylised, bold, simplified, modern, classical?

6. Looking at pictures: visual literacy • Composition • Think about perspective, depth of view, pattern, diagonal lines, movement, rhythm, orientation (portrait or landscape format)?

7. Looking at pictures: visual literacy • Colour • Are the colours bright, warm, hot, strong, bold, complementary colours (red/green, purple/yellow, blue/orange); are there strong tonal contrasts?

8. Looking at pictures: visual literacy • Mood • Is the picture atmospheric, stormy, windy, light and dark, scary, exciting, electric, dramatic?

9. What can’t we see?

10. What can’t we see in a reproduction? • Size • Texture > brush marks, thickness of paint • Support > canvas, wood, paper • If the colour reproduction is accurate

11. Art detectives • www.nationalgallery.org.uk • The National Gallery.Click on Search then scroll down the page to Search the Collection. Type in Rousseau • www.artchive.com • Mark Harden’s database of artists.Click on the Mona Lisa to enter the site and on H Rousseau in the index on the left. View the Image List • www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/rousseau • The Web Museum, Paris Visit these websites to find answers for the quiz about the painting:

12. What was the painting first called? When was it made? Where can it be seen now? In what way was the painting a first for Rousseau? Which jungle inspired the painting? Surprise! 1891 The National Gallery, London It was his first jungle painting None – Rousseau claimed he served with the army in Mexico, but it was probably inspired by visits to the botanical gardens and zoo in Paris and by illustrated books Art detectives

13. 6.When was Rousseau born and when did he die? 7. What was his nickname and why? 8. Name one of his other famous paintings? 9. Why is Rousseau known as a naïve artist? 10. Which twentieth century art movement was influenced by his style of painting after his death? 6. 1844 – 1910 7. Le Douanier or Douanier Rousseau because he had been a low-ranking Customs Officer before he retired 8. The Dream, The Sleeping Gypsy, The Football Players 9. Because he was formally untrained and painted in a childlike or “primitive” way 10. Surrealism

14. Henri Rousseau, Le Douanier

15. Rousseau’s times • Art movements • Impressionism • Post Impressionism • Fauvism • Cubism • Artists • Picasso • Cézanne • Gaugin • Monet • Léger • Dufy Self-portrait, Prague 1890

16. Fact file on Rousseau • He took 3 months to finish a painting working 7 days a week • He painted slowly from the top to the bottom of the canvas, filling in just one colour at a time Portrait of the poet Apollinaire

17. Fact file on Rousseau • There are over 50 shades of green in a jungle painting • He gave violin & painting lessons and was a street musician to eke out a living • He died in poverty and had a pauper’s grave at first

18. Rousseau’s grave now has an epitaph by Apollinaire Gentle Rousseau you can hear usWe salute you Delaunay, his wife, Monsieur Queval and I Let our luggage through the gate of heaven duty-free We’ll bring you paintbrushes, colours, canvassesSo that your heavenly leisure time in the real light Is devoted to painting as when you did my portrait The face of the stars Guillaume Apollinaire translated RKM

19. Famous quotes 1 “ You know, I could have finished all these pictures” about Cézanne, 1907

20. Famous quotes 2 “ We are the two greatest painters of this era: you in the Egyptian style and I in the modern style” about Picasso, 1908