I really enjoyed reading “A Jungle Expedition: Henri Rousseau” by Susanna Pfleger. This story discusses Rousseau’s life and how he wanted nothing more than to be a world famous painter. Working as a customs officer in France, Rousseau loved seeing different types of plants. When he got off of work he would slowly walk home, experience all that nature had to give him. On his weekends off, Rousseau would take his paint brush and isle outside and paint nature.
The book explains that one day Rousseau was visiting the botanical gardens when he fell asleep and had strange dreams. The dreams were of him visiting a forest and seeing strange creatures that helped him find his way home. Rousseau become scared in his dream when a lion began to push his shoulder. He awoke and realized it was only the garden attendant trying to wake him up.
The interesting about this book is the story is illustrated by the actually paints of Rousseau. As the author is describing the nature and jungle scenes, there are corresponding pictures by Rousseau. Even though this book was found in the non-fiction section, because of this writing style I am not sure if this book is entirely non-fiction. The research I did on Rousseau did not mention that he was inspired by a dream he has while sleeping the botanical gardens, only that he was visited them. I believe this dream portion of the text was added by the author to make the story flow nicely.
Even though I believe this story is not entirely non-fiction, it is a very good way to introduce the artist Henri Rousseau. He is a very interesting artist. It is important to note that there are nude females in some of Rousseau’s jungle paintings. If this is a concern these figures can be easily covered up by sticky notes, which is how this book came from the library.
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