Unlike many old British woodcuts about India, this Henri Rousseau canvas’ snake charmer looks more like a shadowy Sith Lord than a figure of derision or pity. The self-taught artist’s gradient-heavy, almost cartoonish Naïve/Primitive style strikes me as a predecessor to pop art and Nina Paley’s Sitayana. His work was exoticist but also IMO quite lovely.

Rousseau’s growing acceptance by the avant-garde led to his commission to paint The Snake Charmer (1907) for Berthe… the mother of the artist Robert Delaunay. The painting is said to have been inspired by Berthe’s own tales of her travels in India… Rousseau introduces the figure of a hypnotic enchanter whose presence seems to create the odd dreamlike stillness of the painting. [Link]

Rousseau lived in a time when the byproducts of French colonialism… seem to have provided the folks back home with some of their most popular, titillating forms of entertainment. Wild beasts, people and adventures were depicted… a dazzling stream of rampaging tigers, damsels in distress, bloodthirsty natives and embattled explorers and animal trainers. [Link]

Check out more Rousseau paintings.

The Football Players: love the delicious palette, odd proportions, cheerful moustaches and upturned hands