Fight Between a Tiger and a Buffalo

The Cleveland Museum of Art catalogs Fight Between a Tiger and a Buffalo as painting (France, late 19th-early 20th Century · 1908).

WHY IT’S INTERESTING

Many of Henri Rousseau's paintings depict wild animals and tropical jungles that might lead one to believe he traveled widely. However, Rousseau never left France, but drew inspiration from visiting botanical gardens and reading travel books.

SERENDIPITYA little unexpected

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A CLOSER LOOK

The museum identifies this painting as oil on fabric and credits Henri Rousseau (French, 1844–1910).

The museum's collection notes: 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 lar

FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE

The Cleveland Museum of ArtFight Between a Tiger and a Buffalo

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