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Notes on video lecture:
The Dream by Henri Rousseau
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on September 18, 2017 (go to class or lectures)
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
voluptuous, Polish, 1910, spell, black, modernist, verdoyants, dreaming, peaceful, Picasso, forerunner, oranges, repress, impoverished, erotic, psychoanalysis, sex, 1920, curve, 1906, glow, awake, teeming, ridiculed, open, flat, strange, hidden, uncanny, naked, animals, moon, animality, doucement, Munch, juxtaposition, regal, enigmatic, pleasure, primitive, Philippe, sexually, surrealists, dreaming, Darwinian, lighting, womb, gaze, ancient, elephant, alienation, lilies, metafisica, Plantes
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Henri Rousseau (1844-        )
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an outsider artist
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spoke to the generation of the                       
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died                         
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1910 The Dream
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strange and                    painting
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a dream of a              woman with whom Rousseau had had a relationship
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naked, she reclines on a red couch, her arm outstretched in a            manner
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she is in a tropical jungle
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a musician playing the flute is              in the foliage
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in this painting, we find beauty that is indisputable, a Louis                  sofa lost in the forest
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eroticism
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the painting evokes feelings of fertility,                 , and desire
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the plants are lush and the animals                and beautiful
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it's not conventionally sexual but it is gently             
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the erotic concerns the aesthetic of sexual desire
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ripe fruit, the threat of                   , and the suggestion of hidden depths, all of these combine to create an erotically charged poetic appeal
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Rousseau wrote a poem to explain the painting and the odd                            of objects
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original poem:
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Yadwigha dans un beau rêve
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S'étant endormie                   
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Entendait les sons d'une musette
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Dont jouait un charmeur bien pensant.
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Pendant que la lune reflète
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Sur les fleurs, les arbres                     ,
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Les fauves serpents prêtent l'oreille
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Aux airs gais de l'instrument.
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the poem speaks of a woman                 , but in the painting, the women is not asleep
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we enter her dream directly
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we see she is            in her own dream
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"he was consumed by the color, the moon, and the lilies"
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"his eyes were so possessed by the glowing red of the couch on which Yadwigha was regally reclined under the moon in the dark jungle among those over-sized             "
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the painting has many questions with few answers
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why is Yadwigha having such a strange dream
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what does the dream mean
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why does she imagine herself           
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why does she place herself in an exotic jungle
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why are the animals so companiable, even the lions and serpants
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who is the hidden flute player
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dreams in paintings
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artists often use their dreams and inner worlds as an inspiration for their art
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in the fin-de-siècle era, the dream took on new meaning particularly because of the ideas of Sigmund Freud and the avant garde artists
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Edvard            (1863-1944)
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painted the dark side of the dream in his famous work of 1893, The Scream
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explores a sense of                      and inner terror
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Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978)
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Italian artist and writer
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founded the scuola                      art movement, which profoundly influenced the surrealists
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set his paintings in strange dreamscapes which resisted interpretation
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1900 Freud's Interpretation of Dreams
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profound influence on the surrealists in the         's
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everything we                will return
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perhaps Rousseau's painting was inspired by Freud's couch
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she is on a red couch in an                place where the familiar is rendered unfamiliar
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topics of dreams, sexuality and desires were common in the 20th century
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the era of                             
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Eve without Adam theme
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painting:          Eve
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Eve stands naked in a jungle
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holds out her hand out to a serpent
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               instead of apples
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also a sense of harmony in nature
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Rousseau's Dream
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Yadwigha is like Eve in a lush, entangled                    jungle
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jungle suggests the unconscious mind of the dreamer
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many animals
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an                  almost hidden by foliage
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the piper who has tamed the wild beasts of the jungle
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her outreached arm reminds us Michaelangelo's Creation of Adam from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
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but here a woman reaches out her hand and creates a tropical forest                with life
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she is the original          which brings forth life
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her naked form draws the eye not so much because she is                  objectified but she is the source of creativity
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there is no sense that Yadwigha is performing for a male         
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she is self-assured,                  and in harmony with life
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her body is erotic, rounded,                     , but not sexualized in a gratuitous manner
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it's a waking dream, all characters have the eyes wide         
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painting is captivating
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strange symmetry to it shapes and forms
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at first the jungle seems impenetrable
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the jungle seems to          from within
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the            of the serpent's body rhymes visually with the curve of her leg
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her rounded breast echoes the roundness of the full         
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the wide-eyes looking of the lions looking out at the viewer suggest they are under the            of the piper
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perhaps the black flute player represents the            servant who often accompanied the female nude of classical painting
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but the flute player is an &active& person, and less of a servant
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some saw Rousseau as a                    painter
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he saw himself as a                   
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pays little attention to photographic likeness, perspective and depth
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created meaning through intricately designed          planes of color and distortions of scale
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he uses flattened space
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an absence of illusionist                 
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his work was                    by conventional art critics
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he found himself increasingly on the side of the avant garde
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mixed with avant garde artists such as               
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Picasso knew he was a                      to new approaches of art
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in his focus on                 , he is certainly a forerunner to the surrealist movement
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surrealists were fascinated with       , desire and repression
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for surrealists, life was a mystery
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humans imposed order where there was none
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Rousseau painted many paintings in which                and humans live in harmony
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a regular visitor to the Jardin de               
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never left Paris
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unusual juxtaposing of objects
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Rousseau's works were often seen as the repository of dreams and                desires

People:

######################### (1888-1978)
Italian artist and writer, who founded the scuola metafisica art movement before World War I which influenced surrealist artists
  • was born in Greece and studied art at Athens Polytechnic
  • in 1906, he moved to Germany entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich
  • in 1909 he moved back to Italy, to Milan and then Florence where he painted some of his well-known works such as The Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon
  • in 1911, he spent some days in Turin and was fascinated by the the architecture of its archways and piazzas
  • in 1911, he moved to Paris and painted there until the start of the war in 1914
  • during the war, he continued to paint and founded the group Pittura metafisica
  • in 1918 he transferred to Rome, after which he began to paint in an increasingly neoclassical and neo-Baroque style
  • he is best known for his metaphysical paintings he produced between 1909 and 1919, which are characterized by haunted, brooding moods evoked by their images
  • in his metaphysical period, he developed a repertoire of motifs: empty arcades, towers, elongated shadows, mannequins, and trains, arranged to create images of forlorness and emptiness that paradoxically also convey a feeling of power and freedom
  • "To become truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken, it will enter the realms of childhood visions and dreams."

Spelling Corrections:

lillies ⇒ lilies
inpenetrable ⇒ impenetrable
transfered ⇒ transferred
absense ⇒ absence
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Rococo Eroticism in 18th Century Popular Culture
John Lavery in Morocco: Orientalism and the Academy
Hazel Lavery and the Politics of Display
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