Many artists and writers, however, adored Rousseau¹s work, seeing in it a gentle, truthful quality. Artists such as Paul Gauguin and Robert Dealanuy championed his work, as did poet Guillaume Apollinaire and playwright Alfred Jarry. Rousseau¹s early paintings were very often landscapes of locales familiar to him and portraits. But in 1895 he panted "War," his now famous work depicting a rider on a field of bloody corpses, and in 1897, "The Sleeping Gypsy," perhaps his most loved work. It shows a lion approaching a sleeping figure under a full moon, and the mood of the work struck a chord of almost surreal evocation of mood that many thought proved as a precursor to the influential dreamlike work of Giorgio DeChirico.
Rousseau also was famous for painting a lush jungle world, epitomized by works like "The Snake Charmer" (1907) and "The Dream" (1910) , a fantasy picture of a nude woman on a red plush couch in a dense jungle. Rousseau had never visited such environs, having probably been no closer to it than the botanical gardens and hothouses of the Jardin des Plantes. In 1908, two years before his death, Rousseau was given a somewhat legendary party by Pablo Picasso, attended by, among others, Gertrude Stein. It was Rousseau¹s official acceptance into a world he loved.
The best site for viewing Rousseau¹s remarkable works is Henri Rousseau's World, a tribute to the artist featuring pictures, biography, and wonderful reproductions of "The Dream," "War," "The Sleeping Gypsy," and others.
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