henri rousseau and my bathroom

i popped into the national art gallery whilst in dc over the weekend. i always have to see the small (and lets face it occasionally medium) french painting exhibit. its true i like french art. so you can imagine my excitement to see the henri rousseau exhibit "jungle in paris" right above small french paintings. here is the thing i like about henri 1) as far as i can tell he has never met an attractive person or chooses not to paint them 2) absolutely no regard for proportion unless flowers really are bigger than tigers 3) the painting, la guerre (the war) is the scariest thing i have ever seen in oil (i am pretty sure i said yikes out loud) and 4) he is so much better in real life, you should go to the exhibit or it would be like watching king kong on my small 18 inch tv (which i did)(still scared the hell out of me). Anyway henri liked to draw tigers and lions chewing other animals. and strangely enough...it reminded me of my bathroom. i lived in a very lovely house in arlington, and in the shower it had a delightful little mural of a lion pouncing on a very peaceful looking deer. you know just a nice little scene you can look at while you condition your hair. there are blood droplets. don't worry, not all of the deer die violent deaths in the mural. some are seen frolicking to the left of the tree despite the fact the lion is ripping off their buddies back.

Here is the whole mural. which has already been blogged about before by duffleboy who stayed at my former abode. incidentally, he was my sunday school teacher in london (loved his lessons). if you click on the link you can read all about his comparative bathroom study which features my old bathroom. however, i have to disagree with the best parts of our bathroom analysis, does he remember the green corner toilet? thats a rare treasure. peeing at an angle. what fun.