Formal Analysis
Sandra Vargas
Formal Analysis
November 19, 2014
Professor Alison Pearlman
Exotic Landscape (French 1844-1910) (1910) by Henri Rousseau Oil on canvas Mexican Pictures Henri Rousseau’s piece titled Exotic Landscapes (1910) represents a childhood myth in which he called his “Mexican Pictures”. He cultivated this idea that he served in the Mexican army by creating a multitude of landscapes paintings. Below I will be describing one of his most famous landscape pieces named “Exotic Landscapes”. This piece was made during the Post-Impressionist movement and is very large in dimension. Stretching across 45.7” by 35” inches; it is an oil painting composition and can be viewed at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, CA.
Luscious green trees saturate the background with different shades of vivid greens. A blooming orange tree stands amongst flourishing green rainforest bushes. These bushes stretch across the entire painting with long green stems rising up from the bottom giving the illusion that the dimension of the rainforest is immense. An earthy brown Gibbon monkey hangs from a branch of the orange tree as its long slender legs dangle and slant towards its right. A second Gibbon monkey stretches his long slender arms above its head holding on to the first monkey’s legs. Amongst the bushes four monkey arms reach out toward the sky giving the impression that there are two more monkeys waiting at the bottom yet only their arms are exposed. In the hand of one arm is a bright orange which creates a correlative pattern with the oranges further above that appear to be “thrown” down from the monkeys dangling on the tree. Toward the bottom far left a larger monkey in gray scraggly coat similar to a Mandrill holds an orange above its face exposing only the black masking covering its eyes giving off the appearance of mischief. The correlation in exchange of oranges amongst the monkeys gave the overall effect that the monkeys were working together. This
Formal Analysis
November 19, 2014
Professor Alison Pearlman
Exotic Landscape (French 1844-1910) (1910) by Henri Rousseau Oil on canvas Mexican Pictures Henri Rousseau’s piece titled Exotic Landscapes (1910) represents a childhood myth in which he called his “Mexican Pictures”. He cultivated this idea that he served in the Mexican army by creating a multitude of landscapes paintings. Below I will be describing one of his most famous landscape pieces named “Exotic Landscapes”. This piece was made during the Post-Impressionist movement and is very large in dimension. Stretching across 45.7” by 35” inches; it is an oil painting composition and can be viewed at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, CA.
Luscious green trees saturate the background with different shades of vivid greens. A blooming orange tree stands amongst flourishing green rainforest bushes. These bushes stretch across the entire painting with long green stems rising up from the bottom giving the illusion that the dimension of the rainforest is immense. An earthy brown Gibbon monkey hangs from a branch of the orange tree as its long slender legs dangle and slant towards its right. A second Gibbon monkey stretches his long slender arms above its head holding on to the first monkey’s legs. Amongst the bushes four monkey arms reach out toward the sky giving the impression that there are two more monkeys waiting at the bottom yet only their arms are exposed. In the hand of one arm is a bright orange which creates a correlative pattern with the oranges further above that appear to be “thrown” down from the monkeys dangling on the tree. Toward the bottom far left a larger monkey in gray scraggly coat similar to a Mandrill holds an orange above its face exposing only the black masking covering its eyes giving off the appearance of mischief. The correlation in exchange of oranges amongst the monkeys gave the overall effect that the monkeys were working together. This