Draft:La Guerre (Rousseau)

La Guerre (fr. 'The War') is an oil-on-canvas artwork created in 1894 by the renowned French painter Henri Rousseau. It stands as one of his most celebrated pieces, recognized for its profound impact and significance within his body of work.

Description and Interpretation
In the center, a fierce and armed woman holds a sword and a torch. This Bellona-like figure, the Roman goddess of war, rides a horse that resembles more of a hybrid monster. The horse in the painting contrasts with that in La Carriole du Père Junier: black, wild, and bristling, representing the brute force of war. With the armed and wild woman atop it, it suggests that war brings about primitiveness. The lower part of the painting shows the effects of war: corpses that serve as the prey for crows. The bare trees and broken branches create a landscape of desolation and allude to death, even though the pink clouds and blue sky fail to convey the drama of the scene. The composition is pyramidal, with the corpses at the base, and the horse and woman above.

History
More than twenty years after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the Paris Commune of 1871, Rousseau, still marked by these events, painted La Guerre. The canvas was exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1894. La Guerre was received either with sarcasm, due to its clumsy appearance, or with enthusiasm, because of its complete stylistic independence. The young painter Louis Roy wrote in Le Mercure de France: "This display may have seemed strange because it did not evoke any idea of something already seen. Isn't that a major quality? He [Rousseau] has the rare merit nowadays of being absolutely personal. He is striving towards a new art...". The painting has been housed at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris since 1986.