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The Dream

Henri Rousseau, 1910

Henri Rousseau's The Dream, dated 1910, places a reclining nude woman on a red sofa in the middle of a dense, moonlit jungle. The painting is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, where visitors can study its layered foliage, hidden animals and quiet, suspended mood up close.

Where to see it

The Dream is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Works in any museum collection can be moved between galleries, lent to other institutions or taken off view for conservation, so check the Museum of Modern Art's official website for current display status, opening hours and ticket information before you plan your visit.

What to look for in person

The woman on the red sofa

At the far left, a nude woman reclines on a red sofa, a piece of furniture that belongs in a Paris apartment rather than a jungle. Rousseau explained that she is dreaming and has been carried into the forest in her sleep, which is why the sofa travels with her. Notice how her outstretched arm points into the scene, leading your eye across the canvas. Her smooth, rounded body and the deep red of the upholstery stand out sharply against the surrounding greens, so she is usually the first thing visitors notice.

Layer upon layer of foliage

Much of the canvas is given over to leaves, stems, flowers and fruit, each painted separately with crisp outlines. Stand back and the plants form overlapping screens that flatten the space, rather like painted stage scenery. Move closer and look at the range of greens and the careful, almost diagram-like shapes of individual leaves. Rousseau never travelled to the tropics; his jungles are generally understood to draw on the plants he saw at the Paris botanical garden and its glasshouses, together with illustrated books and prints.

Watchful animals and the flute player

Take time to search the undergrowth. Two lions peer out with round, alert eyes, while birds, monkeys, an elephant and a snake are tucked among the leaves. Near the centre, a dark figure plays a flute, and the music seems to hold everything still. A pale full moon lights the sky above. Nothing in the scene is in motion, and the animals look more curious than threatening. That stillness is what gives the painting its calm, dreamlike atmosphere rather than a sense of danger.

About the painting

Henri Rousseau was a self-taught painter who spent many years working in the Paris customs and toll service, which earned him the nickname "Le Douanier" (the customs officer). He took up painting seriously relatively late in life and showed his work regularly at the Salon des Indépendants, an exhibition without a selection jury. Critics often mocked his flat forms, unusual proportions and lack of academic training, but a circle of avant-garde artists and writers, including Pablo Picasso and the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, came to value his directness and imagination. The Dream, dated 1910, is one of a series of jungle paintings Rousseau produced in his later years and is generally regarded as the last major work he exhibited. It was shown at the Salon des Indépendants in 1910, and Rousseau died later that same year. He presented the picture with a short poem describing a woman named Yadwigha who falls asleep and dreams of the jungle, offering his own explanation for the sofa's odd setting. When you stand in front of the painting, it helps to read it as two worlds joined together: the domestic interior suggested by the sofa and the imagined wilderness around it. Rousseau does not blend them; he simply places them side by side, with the same even light and sharp edges throughout. This matter-of-fact treatment of an impossible scene is a large part of why later artists, including the Surrealists, found his work so compelling.

Key facts

More by Henri Rousseau

• The Sleeping Gypsy — Museum of Modern Art
• The Repast of the Lion — Metropolitan Museum of Art
• La encantadora de serpientes — Musée d'Orsay
• Carnival Evening — Philadelphia Museum of Art
• Boy on the Rocks — National Gallery of Art
• The Muse Inspiring the Poet
• The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope
• Tiger in a Tropical Storm — National Gallery

Sources

• Wikidata Q548141
• press.moma.org
• www.moma.org