Conclusion: Henri Rousseau and Synthetic Naïveté

Abstract

Beginning with a detailed description of the Fauvist movement, the conclusion illustrates the ways in which the artist as animal myth entered the twentieth century. This chapter highlights the stakes of the project. The notion that we may have something to learn from animals threatens our political and philosophical investment in being human, and it undermines our notions of creative achievement. After all, who is willing to place Degas’ ballerinas on the same instinctual level as a spider’s web? That said, animals and art have been inextricably linked in the age of the Anthropocene. Given our time of environmental crises, this chapter emphasizes the continued role of art and literature today to replace the memory of flora and fauna during a time of its disappearance as well as bridge the divide between human and animal.