Oh Dear, poor deer. This painting is oil on canvas, named The Repast of the Lion and painted by Henri Rousseau in 1907.  At first glance,  you immediately notice a lion in the foreground, eating its prey. The painting itself is relatively flat in sight, Rousseau didn’t employ techniques in his painting to texturize the nature of the canvas. Although the lion is accurately painted, you can’t help but notice the simple brush strokes Rousseau employs to make the painting somewhat minimalistic. The colors used on the lion are the brown and caramel colors of lion fur; however, Rousseau adds a white in its coat in order to almost make the lion glow with prestige, as if catching the prey was its ultimate goal, and it is portrayed achieved.

The body of the lion is hidden is hidden in the grass and you can almost see nothing but mostly its face and mane. The lion looks midway through its meal and so it looks as if the onlooker has interrupted his meal and he has looked up. In addition, Rousseau used a bright red near the lion’s mouth and the neck of the deer to signify that the lion has killed and is eating its prey.  The lion is in what looks like a dense forrest, because it is surrounded by shrubs and flowers.  In the background it seems as if the sun is Rising because there is a bright white, but cloudy sky. This leads me as a view to believe that the lion’s diet is just a cycle and just like a day, he will get hungry again and kill another animal. Rousseau also titles this The Repast of the Lion, so it simply is another meal for a lion.  As a view I feel as if Rousseau did a wonderful job at describing the natural cycle of a lion’s hunger through a delicate scene of flowers and forest shrubbery in the back, and foregrounds of the painting. Although Rousseau did not add texture to the painting, one can almost sympathize for the deer who’s neck belongs to the Lion, or rejoice for the lion’s sucess!