The Snake Charmer (Rousseau)
| The Snake Charmer | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Henri Rousseau |
| Year | 1907 |
| Medium | oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 169 cm × 189.5 cm (67 in × 74.6 in) |
| Location | Musée d'Orsay, Paris |
The Snake Charmer (French: La Charmeuse de Serpents) is a 1907 oil-on-canvas painting by French Naïve artist Henri Rousseau (1844–1910). It is a depiction of a woman with glowing eyes playing a flute in the moonlight by the edge of a dark jungle with a snake extending toward her from a nearby tree.
History
The Snake Charmer was commissioned by Berthe, Comtesse de Delaunay, the mother of artist
Description
The painting has an asymmetric vertical composition with a detailed depiction of the jungle on the right and a woman playing the flute on the left, back-lit by moonlight from a full moon. A snake, charmed by the music, stretches horizontally across the painting. The Musée d'Orsay described the painting as "a black Eve in a disquieting Garden of Eden".[4]
Popular culture references
The painting inspired Australian artist
References
- ISBN 978-1-304-90165-1.
- ^ Rich, Daniel Catton. "Henri Rousseau" (PDF). The Museum of Modern Art. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-02-15. Retrieved 15 November 2018.
- ISBN 978-88-7009-780-1.
- ^ a b "Musée d'Orsay: Henri Rousseau, called Le Douanier The Snake Charmer". www.musee-orsay.fr. Archived from the original on 2018-11-16. Retrieved 12 November 2018.
- ^ Campbell, Peter (5 January 2006). "At Tate Modern". London Review of Books. 28 (1): 24. Archived from the original on 2022-05-16. Retrieved 15 November 2018.
- ^ The Snake-Charmer : For Alto Flute and Orchestra in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- ISBN 978-1-4574-2797-8.
- ^ "Sylvia Plath's transformations of modernist paintings". www.freepatentsonline.com. 7 January 2014. Archived from the original on 7 January 2014. Retrieved 15 November 2018.
