Woman in Red in the Forest 1907

Henri Rousseau, sometime before 1910, painted a woman in red in the forest. Imagine the scene: dense green foliage, rendered with flat, dreamlike precision. And there she is, a splash of bright red, standing amidst all that green, like a bold exclamation point. What I love about Rousseau is how he fearlessly throws together what he sees with what he imagines. I wonder, what was he thinking when he put that woman there? Is she lost? Or has she deliberately stepped into this wild, untamed space? The woman’s red dress pops against the green, but, for me, her tiny parasol steals the show, and I smile. It's as if she’s brought a touch of civilization into this otherwise wild place. Painters borrow from each other all the time, maybe without even knowing it. Rousseau reminds me of Guston, of course, and maybe also of the quirky spirit of Florine Stettheimer. Painting is just one big, beautiful conversation, where one mark leads to another, and where each painting becomes a portal into another’s imagination.