May 21, 1844, Laval, Fr.—d. Sept. 2, 1910, Paris) French painter. After service in the army, he began working as a toll collector (not as a douanier, or customs officer, the epithet his friends later used) but found time to paint and draw. Completely self-taught, he exhibited some early paint¬ ings, including Carnival Evening, at the Salon des Independants in 1886. Like his later works, it is typical of naive art: everything is drawn liter¬ ally, the clouds look solid, and the costumes receive more attention than the figures themselves. It nonetheless achieves a striking mood and mys-
RUNK/SCHOENBERGER FROM GRANT HEILMAN
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Rousseau ► Roy I 1647
tery. In 1893 he retired to devote himself to painting, and in 1894 his War won him his first recognition by the avant-garde. His best-known works are richly coloured images of lush jungles, wild beasts, and exotic figures. He exhibited The Hungry Lion with the Fauves in 1905. He died a pau¬ per; only after his death was his greatness recognized.
Rousseau, Jean-iacques (b. June 28, 1712, Geneva, Switz.—d. July 2, 1778, Ermenonville, France) Swiss-French philosopher. At age 16 he fled Geneva to Savoy, where he became the steward and later the lover of the baronne de Warens. At age 30, having furthered his education and social position under her influence, he moved to Paris, where he joined Denis Diderot at the centre of the philosophes; he wrote on music and eco¬ nomics for Diderot’s Encyclopedie. His first major work, the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1750), argued that man is good by nature but has been corrupted by society and civilization; Rousseau’s belief in the natu¬ ral goodness of man set him apart from Roman Catholic writers who, like him, were hostile to the idea of progress. He also wrote music; his light opera The Cunning-Man (1752) was widely admired. In 1752 he became involved in an influential dispute with Jean-Philippe Rameau over the rela¬ tive merits of French and Italian music; Rousseau championed the latter. In the Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men (1754), he argued against Thomas Hobbes that human life before the for¬ mation of societies was healthy, happy, and free and that vice arose as the result of social organization and especially the introduction of private property. Civil society, he held, comes into being only to ensure peace and to protect property, which not everyone has; it thus represents a fraudulent social contract that reinforces inequality. In the Social Con¬ tract (1762), which begins with the memorable line, “Man was bom free, but he is everywhere in chains,” Rousseau argues that a civil society based on a genuine social contract rather than a fraudulent one would provide people with a better kind of freedom in exchange for their natural inde¬ pendence, namely, political liberty, which he understands as obedience to a self-imposed law created by the “general will.” In 1762 the publication of Emile , a treatise on education, produced outrage, and Rousseau was forced to flee to Switzerland. He began showing signs of mental instabil¬ ity c. 1767, and he died insane. His Confessions (1781-88), which he modeled on the work of the same title by St. Augustine, is among the most famous autobiographies.
Rousseau \rii-'so\, (Pierre-Etienne-) Theodore (b. April 15, 1812, Paris, Fr.—d. Dec. 22, 1867, Barbizon) French painter. A tailor’s son, he began to paint at 14 and soon was painting outdoors directly from nature, a novel practice at the time. Because he strayed from the academic path, his work was consistently rejected by the Salon. From the 1830s he painted regularly in the village of Barbizon, where he became a leader of the Barbizon school of landscape painters. His paintings, which show nature as a wild, undisciplined force, counter the calmly idealized land¬ scapes of Neoclassicism, and his small, highly textured brushstrokes presage those of the Impressionists.
Roussel \rii-'sel\, Albert (-Charles-Paul-Marie) (b. April 5,1869, Tourcoing, France—d. Aug. 23, 1937, Royan) French composer. He served as a midshipman for seven years before making music his career, and he studied for 10 years at Paris’s Schola Cantorum. His early music was much influenced by his teacher Vincent d'Indy. His opera-ballet Pad- mavati (1918), with its Indian scales, won enthusiasm from younger com¬ posers; his other important works include the ballets The Spider’s Feast (1913) and Bacchus etAriane (1930) and the Third Symphony (1930). His music is notable for its lyrical fervour, austerity of technique, and har¬ monic audacity.
Roussillon \,ru-se- , yo n \ Historical and cultural region, southern France. Originally inhabited by Iberians, the region was conquered by Rome in the 2nd century bc. It was held by the Visigoths in the 5th century ad, and successively by Arabs and Carolingian Franks. It was acquired by the counts of Barcelona in the 9th century. Monasticism flourished from the 10th century on, and the area is rich in Romanesque architectural remains. It became part of the kingdom of Aragon in the 12th century. It was acquired from Spain by treaty in 1659. The chief city is Perpignan. There are numerous families of Catalan gypsies, and Catalan is widely spoken.
router Portable electric power tool used in carpentry and furniture mak¬ ing that consists of an electric motor, a base, two handle knobs, and bits (cutting tools). A router can cut fancy edges for shelving, grooves for storm windows and weather stripping, circles and ovals with smooth edges, and round comers on work of all types.
Rowe \'ro\, Nicholas (b. June 20, 1674, Little Barford, Bedfordshire, Eng.—d. Dec. 6, 1718, London) English writer. His plays, which did much to assist the rise of domestic tragedy (in which the protagonists are middle-class rather than aristocratic), include The Ambitious Step-Mother (1700), Tamerlane (1702), The Fair Penitent (1703), The Tragedy of Jane Shore (1714), and The Tragedy of the Lady Jane Grey (1715). He is also remembered as the first to attempt a critical edition of William Shakespeare (The Works of Mr. William Shakespear, 1709, 1714). His own poetry includes odes and translations. He became poet laureate in 1715. Rowe is regarded as the foremost 18th-century English tragic dramatist.
rowing Propulsion of a boat by means of oars. As a sport, it involves one of two kinds of boat: (1) the shell, a narrow, light racing boat pro¬ pelled by eight rowers pulling single oars under the direction of a cox¬ swain; and (2) the scull, a racing shell propelled by one or two rowers using sculls (pairs of oars). Organized racing began at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge in the 1820s, culminating in 1839 in the Henley Regatta (from 1851 the Henley Royal Regatta). In the U.S., Harvard and Yale universities first raced in 1851. Rowing events in the Olympic Games have been held for men since 1900 and for women since 1976.
Rowlandson Vro-bnd-sonX, Mary orig. Mary White (b. c. 1637, England—d. Jan. 5, 1710/11, Wethersfield, Conn.) British-American colo¬ nial author. She was the daughter of the original proprietor of Lancaster, Mass., where she lived with her minister husband and their four children. When Indians razed the settlement in 1676, she was captured and held hostage for 11 weeks. Ransomed, she moved to Connecticut with her hus¬ band and two surviving children. Her narrative of captivity, titled The Soveraignty & Goodness of God, Together with the Faithfulness of His Promises Displayed; Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson and published in 1682, became popular in the colonies and in London.
Rowlandson, Thomas (b. July 1756, London, Eng.—d. April 22, 1827, London) British caricaturist. The son of a merchant, he studied at the Royal Academy and in Paris. After establishing a portrait studio, he began to draw caricatures to supplement his income, and found such suc¬ cess with them that caricature became his major occupation. The comic images he created lampooned familiar social types of his day—the anti¬ quarian, the blowsy barmaid, the hack writer. He also illustrated editions of the novels of Tobias Smollett, Oliver Goldsmith, and Laurence Sterne.