Copy painting hand-painted of the artwork
Tropical Landscape, American Indian Struggling with a Gorilla (Rousseau)

This work is a dramatic and exotic combat scene, typical of Henri Rousseau’s teeming imagination. In the heart of a dense and stylized jungle, a man with a feathered headdress struggles hand-to-hand with a gorilla. The scene is illuminated by a large red sun setting on the horizon, giving the confrontation a twilight and intense atmosphere. The vegetation is lush, with large leaves, colorful flowers, and palm trees creating a setting that is both magnificent and oppressive. The Douanier, who never traveled, drew his inspiration from books and botanical gardens to create a fantasized world. The naive style, with its simplified forms and bright colors, gives this primitive struggle a mythical and timeless dimension, an allegory of man’s fight against wild nature.