The Snake Charmer (Rousseau)

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.

The Snake Charmer
ArtistHenri Rousseau
Year1907 (1907)
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensions169 cm × 189.5 cm (67 in × 74.6 in)
LocationMusée d'Orsay, Paris

History

The Snake Charmer was commissioned by Berthe, Comtesse de Delaunay, the mother of artist Robert Delaunay. It was Rousseau's first large commission and was exhibited in the 1907 Autumn Salon.[1][2] Because Rousseau never traveled outside of France, the exotic plants in the painting resulted from Rousseau's visits to the Jardin des plantes and from magazines.[3] From 1922 to 1936, The Snake Charmer was in the collection of Jacques Doucet. It was promised to the Louvre in 1925 and became part of its collection in 1937.[4][5]

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]

Sylvia Plath's 1957 poem "Snakecharmer" and Willard Elliot's 1975 composition The Snake Charmer for Alto Flute and Orchestra were inspired by Rousseau's painting.[6][7][8]

The painting inspired Australian artist Brett-Livingstone Strong's painting Homage to Henri Rousseau, which is recognisable as the album cover of the 1987 Fleetwood Mac album Tango in the Night. The painting was also used as cover art for the 2000 novel Merrick by Ann Rice, Darwin’s Dangerous idea by Daniel C. Dennett, Origins of the Modern Mind by Merlin Donald, and Gaia by James E. Lovelock.

References
  1. Tsaneva, Maria (2014). Henri Rousseau: 112 Paintings. Lulu Press, Inc. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-304-90165-1.
  2. Rich, Daniel Catton. "Henri Rousseau" (PDF). The Museum of Modern Art. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-02-15. Retrieved 15 November 2018.
  3. Magi, Giovanna (1998). Grande Louvre e il Museo d'Orsay, il. Casa Editrice Bonechi. p. 123. ISBN 978-88-7009-780-1.
  4. "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.
  5. 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.
  6. The Snake-Charmer : For Alto Flute and Orchestra in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
  7. Pellerite, James (1963). Handbook of Literature for the Flute: A List of Graded Method Materials, Solos, and Ensemble Music for the Flute. Alfred Music. p. 260. ISBN 978-1-4574-2797-8.
  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.
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