As a musician, the gypsy in this painting is an artist; as a traveler, she has no clear social place. Lost in the self-absorption that is deep, dreaming sleep, she is dangerously vulnerable—yet the lion is calmed and entranced. The Sleeping Gypsy is formally exacting—its contours precise, its color crystalline, its lines, surfaces, and accents carefully rhymed. Rousseau plays delicately with light on the lion's body. A letter of his describes the painting's subject: "A wandering Negress, a mandolin player, lies with her jar beside her (a vase with drinking water), overcome by fatigue in a deep sleep. A lion chances to pass by, picks up her scent yet does not devour her. There is a moonlight effect, very poetic. The scene is set in a completely arid desert. The gypsy is dressed in oriental costume." A sometime douanier (toll collector) for the city of Paris, Rousseau was a self-taught painter, whose work seemed entirely unsophisticated to most of its early viewers. Much in his art, however, found modernist echoes: the flattened shapes and perspectives, the freedom of color and style, the subordination of realistic description to imagination and invention. As a consequence, critics and artists appreciated Rousseau long before the general public did.

　Publication excerpt from The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999, p. 29.

百度翻译：http://fanyi .baidu.com

　　作家张爱玲曾经写过一篇散文，《忘不了的画》，讲述她最喜爱的一些画作。文中有一段是这样写的：
　　“超写实派的梦一样的画，给我印象最深的是一张无名的作品，一个女人睡倒在沙漠里，有着埃及人的宽黄脸，细瘦玲珑的手与脚；穿着最简单的麻袋样的袍子，白底红条，四周是无垠的沙；沙上的天，虽然夜深了还是淡淡的蓝，闪着金的沙质。一只黄狮子走来闻闻她，她头边搁着乳白的瓶，想是汲水去，中途累倒了。”
　　张爱玲所提到的这幅画，是法国画家亨利·卢梭（Henri Julien Félix Rousseau, 1844–1910）的作品：《熟睡的吉普赛人》（The Sleeping Gypsy），1897年作。

　　我想张爱玲一定是在无意间在某本杂志上见到这幅画作，令她眼前一亮。但张爱玲在写她的散文时，想必是仅凭记忆来描述这幅画的场面，有些细节她已记不清了。例如睡梦中的吉普赛女郎的手脚并不“细瘦玲珑”，她的衣裙也并非“白底红条”，水瓶也不是乳白色等。
　　但这幅画毕竟给张爱玲留下深刻印象，所以才能在万千画作中选出作为最喜爱的几幅作品之一，可见张爱玲的慧眼。其实画家本人也对自己的作品十分得意，说它“very poetic”。
　　一位非洲的吉普赛女郎从远处汲水来，倦倒在沙漠上，于是便沉沉睡去。她身上穿的鲜艳条纹的长裙，以及身旁的曼陀林和长颈水罐都明显带有东方文化的符号。一只狮子跑过来，一头金发在皎洁的月光下闪闪发光。狮子注视着横卧在沙丘上的女人，可能是出于关心，也可能仅仅是好奇，但没有一丝攻击的企图。而女子也毫无防范之心，似乎完全没有戒备的习惯，想睡就倒下睡一会儿。这是最纯粹的童话世界，在这里月亮圆的完美无缺，星空是纯净的深蓝，沙漠和远山都在月光下熠熠闪亮，生命与生命可以相安无事，平等相待，没有生存的血腥争斗。如果现实中真的发生野兽与人在一起的场景，那绝无浪漫可言，而是令人毛骨悚然的一幕。这幅画给予超现实主义（Surrealism）画作最好的阐释：取材现实，超越现实。