24 Jun Henri Rousseau and his influence on decorative art and mural artists
Henri Rousseau was born the 21st of May 1844 and was a French post-impressionist
painter in the Naive or Primitive manner. He was also known as Le Douanier, a
humorous description of his occupation as a toll and tax collector.
Rousseau claimed he had ‘no teacher other than nature’, his best known paintings
depict jungle scenes, even though he never left France or saw a jungle.
His inspiration came from illustrated books and the botanical gardens in Paris, as well
as a tableaux of ‘taxidermied’ wild animals. He had met soldiers, during his term of
service, who had survived the French expedition to Mexico and listened to their stories
of the subtropical country they had encountered.
His style lush in colours with stylized almost graphic depictions of plants and animals
grew in popularity after his death in 2 September 1910 ,Rousseau’s work exerted an
extensive influence on several generations of avant-garde artists, The song “The Jungle
Line”, by Joni Mitchell, is based upon a Rousseau painting.
With certain artists their work goes down in the collective subconscious, Rousseau’s
green wavy plants with yellow outlines are one example.
Recently I discussed doing a mural commission with the sculptor Thomas Ostanberg
who was a Rousseau fan. He had been to Brazil and photographed many of the animals
he had seen in the jungle. The suggestion was that I was to paint a mural influenced by
Henri Rousseau incorporating many of his animals but it was to be a Richard Bagguley
mural in my style of painting murals.
We firstly measured a feature wall in his flat and I did a scaled drawing for the mural, it
was to be painted in my studio in London and then transported to his apartment and
stuck to the wall using a marouflage technique.
Interestingly whilst doing my research for the mural I found many of Rousseau’s
influences in many areas of the decorative arts including the very latest designs by De
Gauney wallpaper where like me they used a blend of his material along with other
tropical plants creating a visual feast.
I had designed my mural to focus firstly on the animals especially the gossiping blue
Macaws which dominate at the top of the mural and then the foliage, I firstly placed my
favourite tropical plants filling in the spaces with Rousseau influenced fauna, creating a
luscious jungle blend, resulting in an original Richard Bagguley mural.
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