Dream, Decoration and the Wider World

Henri Rousseau

The Dream

1910

Oil on canvas, 204.5 × 298.5 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York

A nude reclines on a sofa in the middle of a moonlit jungle. At roughly two by three meters, no jungle scene by him is bigger, and none came later.

• Its plants and animals came from Paris sources: sketches at the Jardin des Plantes and the zoo, popular literature and colonial expositions. The nude and musician are invented.
• It was shown at the Salon des Indépendants.
• Look into the leaves: lions, birds, monkeys and a musician hide among them.
• In February 1910 the dealer Ambroise Vollard purchased it directly from the painter.
• Nelson A. Rockefeller gave it to the Museum of Modern Art in 1954.

Asked about the sofa, he explained that the sleeping woman dreams of being carried off to the forest. The museum notes the picture's later influence on Dalí and Magritte.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · PD-Art