Description
| Year of creation: | 1896–1898 |
| Original size: | 65.5 cm x 49.7 cm |
| Painting style: | Naive art (Primitivism), Post-Impressionist period |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Located: | Pola Museum of Art, Hakone |
View of the Eiffel Tower and the Trocadéro, 1896–1898
A sun standing low
A large orange-yellow sun hangs above the river, painted as a full round disc without
rays. Around it the sky divides into horizontal bands: warm orange and red below, blue-grey
higher up, and at the top heavy dark clouds with soft edges. It is exactly this division into
bands that gives the canvas its calm – the sky does not blend, it is stacked in layers one
above another.
The tower with a flag
Left of centre rises the Eiffel Tower, painted as a narrow lattice structure with three
distinct stages. At its top a small French tricolour flies – a detail easy to miss, and the
only source of strong colour in the upper part of the picture. The tower is not set in the
middle; it stands to one side, so that the sun and the tower do not compete for the same
space.
The Trocadéro on the other side
Right of centre, beyond the bridge, stands a building with two towers and a low dome
between them. The museum’s title names this building as the Trocadéro; we do not describe it
further, because the museum’s record carries no description of the picture. Within the scene
it works as a counterweight to the tower: two verticals on the right against one on the
left.
The bridge and the reflection
A stone bridge with arches spans the whole width of the canvas, and lamp standards stand
along its parapet. Through the arches the water shows, with the sun’s light drawn out across
it in a warm band. At the lower left lies a yellow barge, a small dark figure stands on the
quay, and another sits in a rowing boat on the water. A comparably ordered evening scene on
our shelf is View of the Île de la Cité, Paris, and another evening subject is A Carnival Evening.
Autumn trees at the sides
The left and right edges are closed by dense groups of trees in autumn colours – ochre,
brown and dark green. They work like curtains, between which the view of the river opens.
Because of them the scene is bounded: the eye does not wander to the side but goes straight
towards the sun. A river bridge from the same series is View of the Clichy Bridge at Asnières, and a still sheet of water is
The Canal.
The museum and the record
The original is held by the Pola Museum of Art in Hakone, Japan, under accession number
006-0369, in the group the museum calls its Henri Rousseau collection. The museum records it
as oil on canvas measuring 49.7 x 65.5 cm and dates it to 1896-1898. Some other sources give
a different title and the year 1910; since the object is the museum’s own, we follow the
museum’s record.
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. The sun is the demanding part: it has to stay a full, even disc with a soft but
definite edge – if it bleeds into the sky, the scene loses its centre. So it goes on only
once the sky around it is dry. Because the work is done by hand, every copy differs a little
from the last. The full range by this painter is in the Henri Rousseau gallery.
