Shop art print and framed art Tiger in a Tropical Storm by Henri Rousseau

Tiger in a Tropical Storm or Surprised! is an 1891 oil-on-canvas painting by Henri Rousseau. It was the first of the jungle paintings for which the artist is chiefly known. It shows a tiger, illuminated by a flash of lightning, preparing to pounce on its prey in the midst of a raging gale. Unable to have a painting accepted by the jury of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture, or the Academy of Painting and Sculpture, Rousseau exhibited Tiger in a Tropical Storm in 1891 under the title Surpris!, at the Salon des Indépendants, which was unjuried and open to all artists. The painting received mixed reviews. Rousseau had been a late developer: his first known work, Landscape with a Windmill, was not produced until he was 35, and his work is marked by a naïveté of composition that belies its technical complexity. Most critics mocked Rousseau's work as childish, but Félix Vallotton, a young Swiss painter who was later to be an important figure in the development of the modern woodcut, said of it: He (Rousseau's tiger) is derived from a motif found in the drawings and paintings of Eugène Delacroix. It was claimed, either by Rousseau himself or by his friends and admirers, that he had experienced life in the jungle during his time in Mexico in 1860, where he had served as a regimental bandsman. In fact he never left France, and it is thought that his inspiration came from the botanical gardens of Paris, such as the Jardin des Plantes (which included zoological galleries with [...]

 

This artwork is a painting from the modern period. It belongs to the naïve art style.

 

« Tiger in a Tropical Storm » is kept at National Gallery, London, United Kingdom.

 

Find the full description of Tiger in a Tropical Storm by Henri Rousseau on Wikipedia.