![]() ![]() It had been on view, nearly continually, for 80 years.ĭuring the first major treatment of The Sleeping Gypsy in decades, paintings conservator Michael Duffy assumed the varied roles of detective, scientist, and artist. Rousseau’s Sleeping Gypsy came to the conservation studio for inspection when the Museum closed its doors to prepare for its 2019 reopening. ![]() By the time MoMA acquired it in the 1930s, art dealers and previous owners had cleaned, repaired, and varnished the canvas. It was not until 1924, 14 years after the artist’s death, that the work was rediscovered in a charcoal merchant’s shop in Paris-a less than ideal place to store an oil painting. When he completed The Sleeping Gypsy in 1897, Henri Rousseau offered to sell the painting to his hometown of Laval, 200 miles southwest of Paris. Instead he manages to bring us to the Oneness that connects us all to whatever subject he has chosen to explore.One of MoMA’s most iconic paintings went missing for decades before it was first hung on the Museum’s walls in 1939. He always find a way to link the stories he writes with a broader stroke that applies to us all, and not simply those interested in this one artist, one painting, or other one thing. Gerstein has a way with his author's notes, as well, giving us the bits of information relative to again instilling this idea, that imagination is a useful tool, and mystery a powerful stimulator for creating. It is very unusual to find a picture book for children written in the tense and voice that Mordecai Gerstein has managed here, and it works beautifully to bring the reader into the story and also to know they have the freedom to imagine a different story behind this painting. ![]() Herein lies a tale of what may have been one story behind this, which infers knowledge and perhaps research from Rousseau's writings, but clearly has taken liberties with imagination. Recommended to anyone looking for children's stories about dreams, artists, and the powerful effect that art can have upon us, its ability to command our attention and draw a response.Īs a child, this painting is one that more than most others called me to wonder and mystery. There are moments of humor, as when the narrator informs us that Rousseau ignored all critiques, and moments of beauty as well. The illustrations here, done in acrylics, build seamlessly upon the style and aesthetics of the original painting, expanding its vision in interesting and thought-provoking ways. I really enjoyed this exploration of one possible back-story for a painting that he has found personally inspiring, especially since I have seen The Sleeping Gypsy many times, while visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When Rousseau himself shows up and begins painting her, each of the animals, save the lion, has so much to say about the painting, that he ends up erased from the canvas.Īwarded a Caldecott Medal in 2004 for The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, Mordicai Gerstein is a prolific and immensely talented artist in his own right. Following a young woman as she treks across the desert, the narrative chronicles her singing, her nighttime rest, and the many animals who come to examine her. Inspired by French artist Henri Rousseau's famous painting, The Sleeping Gypsy, author/illustrator Mordicai Gerstein imagines the story - as contained in Rousseau's dream - that might lie behind the celebrated work of art.
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