Description
Having never ventured outside France, Henri Rousseau derived his jungle scenes from reading travel books and visiting the Paris botanical garden. He placed this imaginary scene of a tiger attacking a buffalo within a fantastic jungle environment in which botanical accuracy was of little importance (note the bananas growing upside down). Here, sharply outlined hothouse plants are enlarged to fearsome proportions. Rousseau was working on this painting while imprisoned for fraud in December 1907. Officials granted him an early release to finish it for exhibition at the Salon des Indépendants, where this major composition, one of the artist's largest and most important, appeared in March 1908. A self-taught artist and retired customs inspector, Rousseau was admired by Pablo Picasso and other avant-garde artists for his originality and the naïve purity of his vision.
Provenance
Bought from the artist by Ambroise Vollard on 14 December 1909.; Bought by John Quinn, New York, October 1923.; Quinn estate from 1924.; Mrs. John Alden Carpenter, Chicago, by 1926.; Mrs. Patrick J. Hill, Washington D.C.; [Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, 1948]; Purchased by the Cleveland Museum of Art on 14 June 1949.
Accession Number
1949.186
Medium
oil on fabric
Dimensions
Framed: 183 x 203 x 4.5 cm (72 1/16 x 79 15/16 x 1 3/4 in.); Unframed: 170 x 189.5 cm (66 15/16 x 74 5/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Gift of the Hanna Fund
Tags
Painting Early Modern (1901–1950) Oil Painting French
Background & Context
Background Story
Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) was a French painter known as Le Douanier (the customs officer), whose naively composed, brilliantly colored paintings of jungle scenes and exotic subjects make him one of the most important self-taught painters in the history of art and a major influence on the Surrealists. Fight between a Tiger and a Buffalo from 1908 depicts a tiger fighting a buffalo in the naively composed, brilliantly colored manner that distinguishes Rousseau's best work from the more sophisticated painting of his contemporaries. The 1908 date places this near the end of Rousseau's career, when he was producing the naively composed, brilliantly colored jungle paintings that are his most accomplished works and that would have such a profound influence on the Surrealists.
Cultural Impact
Fight between a Tiger and a Buffalo is important in the history of modern art because it demonstrates the naively composed, brilliantly colored manner that Rousseau brought to jungle subjects as the most important self-taught painter in the history of art. Rousseau's naively composed jungle paintings—combining the naive composition of a self-taught painter with the brilliant color and exotic subjects that would influence the Surrealists—represent one of the most important developments in 20th-century art, and the 1908 painting shows this development near the end of Rousseau's career.
Why It Matters
Fight between a Tiger and a Buffalo is Rousseau's brilliantly colored naive painting: a tiger fighting a buffalo rendered in the naive manner of the most important self-taught painter in the history of art. The 1908 painting shows the combination of naive composition with brilliant color that would influence the Surrealists and make Rousseau one of the most important artists in the development of 20th-century art.
