The War - Henri Rousseau

A striking lithograph by Henri Rousseau depicting a personification of war riding across a field of fallen figures.

Henri Rousseau, a self-taught customs officer, produced this lithograph as a monochrome interpretation of his earlier oil painting, La Guerre. The composition depicts a central figure, a female personification of war, mounted on a dark, charging horse. She brandishes a sword in one hand and a flaming torch in the other, moving across a desolate field littered with fallen bodies. The scene is stark and direct, characteristic of Rousseau's approach to complex subjects. Unlike his more colourful canvases, this print relies on the contrast between the dark ink and the orange-toned paper. The lines are deliberate and unrefined, reflecting the artist's lack of formal academic training. This absence of traditional perspective creates a flattened, dreamlike quality that separates the work from the realism popular in the late nineteenth century. The skeletal trees and the birds circling the carnage add a grim, symbolic layer to the depiction of conflict. Rousseau often drew inspiration from popular imagery and illustrated journals of the era. By stripping away the nuance of academic painting, he presents a raw, immediate vision of destruction. The figure of the rider, with her flowing hair and determined posture, dominates the frame, while the victims below are rendered with a simplified anatomy that emphasises the universality of the suffering. This print offers a clear view into the unique visual language of an artist who operated outside the established art circles of Paris, relying instead on his own imagination and a singular, honest perspective.