Description
| Year of creation: | ca. 1893–1895 |
| Original size: | 100.6 cm x 80.6 cm |
| Painting style: | Naive art (Primitivism), Post-Impressionist period |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Located: | Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York |
Artillerymen, ca. 1893–1895
A crew posed as if for a photograph
The canvas is landscape and shows a whole gun crew gathered around their weapon and
turned straight at the viewer. The arrangement is that of a group photograph: three men sit
on the grass in front, a row stands to the right of the gun, several heads rise above the
wheel, and one man stands apart at the right edge. Nobody is doing anything – they are all
posing, exactly as they would before a photographer. That is what makes the picture a
memento of a unit rather than a scene of action.
The gun and its wheel
The centre is taken by a field gun: the dark barrel looks to the left, and beneath it
rises a large wooden wheel with many spokes, the brightest object on the canvas. Painted
lettering on the rim names a battery and a gun number – the letters are small and we do not
transcribe them here. The wheel works like a window in the middle of the group: grass shows
through the spokes, and the men behind it arrange themselves around it as around the centre
of a crest.
The uniforms
The men wear dark blue tunics with gold shoulder cords and red collar facings, white
trousers, and kepis with red tops. Almost all of them have moustaches. One of those
standing by the gun wears two decorations on his chest. The contrast between dark tunic and
white trouser repeats right across the width and gives the canvas a rhythm it would
otherwise lack: the group reads as a row of vertical bands, dark above, light below.
The man in white
At the right edge stands a figure who does not fit that scheme: a long white coat over
the whole body, a dark fur cap instead of a kepi, dark boots. Rifles with slings are propped
beside him. Because he is the only one light from head to foot, and because he stands a
little away from the row, he draws the eye as strongly as the gun does. Rousseau did not
line him up with his comrades; he left him his own space at the edge.
Meadow and trees
The lower third is a bright green meadow, painted in small vertical strokes. Behind the
group rises a band of trees: a broad round crown at the centre with rust and green leaves,
two slender trees at the right and denser growth at the left. The sky is a pale blue-grey
with soft cloud. At the left edge stands a light three-legged stand with a small dark object
on top – a sighting instrument belonging to the battery’s equipment.
The museum and the record
The original is held by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York under accession
number 38.711. The museum records it as oil on canvas measuring 80.6 x 100.6 cm and dates
it to about 1893-1895. The same museum also holds The Football Players, so these two Rousseau canvases sit
in one collection in New York. A comparably conceived group portrait is The Wedding Party, and among the
outdoor portraits there is The Past and the Present.
How we make this canvas
We make the picture as a hand-painted oil on canvas reproduction, to order and in the
size you choose. Two parts of this subject are the demanding ones: the spokes of the wheel,
which have to stay straight and evenly spaced, and the row of faces, where each needs its
own expression or the group collapses into a repeated pattern. Because the work is done by
hand, every copy differs a little from the last. The canvas is stretched on a wooden frame
and delivered ready to hang. Another Paris subject in our series is Jardin du Luxembourg. The full range is in the Henri Rousseau gallery.
