The Sleeping Gypsy is an iconic painting by Henri Rousseau about the youthful curiosity of the wandering people in French cities in the dramatic periods of the mid-nineteenth century. For art lovers, Rousseau is a man or a visual myth that flows from the painting to the viewer’s soul with stories and Nature. How he looks into the world is not recognised first; people follow his juvenile trail.
‘When the time comes to write the history of art for this era, the name Henri Rousseau will appear on the first page, predicted by an art dealer Wilhelm Uhde after the death of Rousseau. The Sleeping Gypsy was stated as an artist’s observation of the time he lived in and made a visual narration of a miracle he witnessed in his life.
This subject is intriguing because the content is well-connected with French culture. French people receive the ‘Romanies’, called ‘bohémiens’, which change a city’s cultural identity forever. “A wandering Negress, a mandolin player, lies with her jar beside her (a vase with drinking water), overcome by fatigue in a deep sleep. A lion chances to pass by and picks up her scent, yet does not devour her. There is a moonlight effect, very poetic, as written by Rousseau in this painting, mentioned in Google Art and Culture.
Why is the Gypsy lady lying in the desert land? Why she the lion supposed to be passed by her and take her scent but not devour her? It’s all about an artist’s dream, or do a bohémien women give a glimpse of this to the artist? The Sleeping Gypsy brings reality and fiction in a composition that carries us into a desert of presence. Still, we are lying between a mandolin and a jar (a vase with drinking water or wine) and waiting for a lion across the desert to travel a lot to reach us.
This painting lived with us for over a hundred years, encapsulating and influencing us, making us mad. That peaceful sleep of a bohémien woman breaks our dream. We bring the river into our life in our imagination. Lion and the Moon is maybe a dream of the dreamer. There is no footprint of the lady and the lion; assume both are there, not coming from somewhere distant.
For a long time, French writers and artists observed the change that ensued from the Gypsy culture in French society. Historical connections between the artists and Gypsy culture and that link are produced in many artworks like ‘The Sleeping Gypsy’. Why doesn’t Henri Rousseau use French ambience to paint this Gypsy life? Gypsy life is a dream the French people saw for a long time, and they were so fascinated by that dream. Rousseau may address that desire of Gypsy in the ‘other’ landscape from where they come from or leave. The flat planes of the terrain oiled the composition as moonlight, natural geometric forms, and the exotic subject of sleep narrated it as much as they deserved.
The Gypsy people used to play instruments and dance in music events. The worlds teach them music and dance; they bring that happiness wherever they live and settle. In this painting, the Gypsy woman wanders, plays Mandolin, and sleeps profoundly. The time of Rousseau is when Photography came as an invention of modernity, inspiring many artists. Rousseau remains the same as many of them. He brings realism into a magical sphere of atmosphere and ambience. Rousseau overcomes the lack of studio practice with models through his relentless manoeuvre with his imagination of realism.
The artist hides an element of symbolism in his painting and is observed to be detached from the art conventions of any movement that happened at that time. Rousseau’s style creates ornamental artwork reflecting the slow process of making from the vein, using numerous layers of things and colours, blending with the time that brings elements into sense.
The word Gypsy or bohémiens has a cultural baggage of their lifestyle and performativity. Gyspy is not only a title but a term that indicates a romantic, free-living, free-loving person coming from somewhere, staying for a while, and leaving somewhere. Gypsy is the life of ‘Dark’, mysterious people, and the people who lived close to Nature, the rural way of life, and musical.
The questions remain about the oriental elements of this painting. The concept of Gypsy carries many features of stories and the hypnotic grandeur of dreams and reality. In this work, the artist intends to question the label of Gypsy with unlabelled natural garments. Rousseau’s Sleeping Gypsy comes from the wild dreams and imagination of absurd fiction of women, music, and sleeping. The artist creates a visual form that is not familiar even now in life’s modern and urban settings.
Credit: Google Art and Culture
Krispin Joseph PX, a poet and journalist, completed an MFA in art history and visual studies at the University of Hyderabad.
