Background
Henri Rousseau was born on May 21, 1844, in Laval, Mayenne, Pays de la Loire, France to the middle class family.
Henri Rousseau
Henri Rousseau
Henri Rousseau was born on May 21, 1844, in Laval, Mayenne, Pays de la Loire, France to the middle class family.
Henri Rousseau attended school in Laval until 1860. In his late teens, he worked for a lawyer and then enlisted in the army, although he never saw combat. In 1868, Rousseau left the army and moved to Paris, where he began working as a toll collector at the entrance to the city.
At the age of 18 Rousseau enlisted in the army, where he played the saxophone in an infantry band. It is usually assumed by biographers, following Rousseau's own account, that he was stationed in Mexico from 1862 to 1866 as part of the French force supporting the emperor Maximilian. He left the army in 1866 and worked for a while as a clerk in a lawyer's office. In 1871 he served as a corporal in the army in the Franco-Prussian War. Upon demobilization that year he took a minor position with the customs service, where he remained until his early retirement in 1885.
Given a small pension, Rousseau settled in humble quarters and devoted himself to painting. In 1884 he had begun to copy in the Louvre. In 1886 he exhibited for the first time at the Salon des Indépendants, where he showed fairly regularly until his death. He helped support himself by giving lessons in painting, diction, and music. Though many ridiculed him, Paul Gauguin, Odilon Redon, Georges Seurat, Camille Pissarro, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec admired his work.
Rousseau was well liked by other artists, whom he invited to his soirées, but he was often made the object of practical jokes. In 1908 he was given a party by Pablo Picasso, whom he came to consider as one of the two greatest living painters, the other being himself.
The power of Rousseau's paintings is derived from a remarkable combination of fantasy and actuality. His scenes are grounded in actuality, but even as he has tried to realize the concreteness of each event, they have been transformed into a quaint private world. Neither modeling nor atmospheric perspective, a technique in which objects are blurred to suggest distance from the observer, is used. He depicted weddings and family reunions of friends; cityscapes and landscapes of Paris and its suburbs, like the Village Street (1909); and, most remarkable of all, jungle scenes.
Rousseau's jungle pictures are an amalgamation of memory images of his Mexican trip (if, indeed, he ever was in Mexico), visual experiences from visits to botanical gardens and zoos, and depictions of plants and wild animals he had seen on postcards and in photographs. In the Sleeping Gypsy (1897) a Negress, in a picturesque costume, lies asleep in the midst of a desert with a mandolin and a pitcher beside her. The moon is shining, and a lion sniffs curiously at her. The Dream (1910) may be connected with a youthful romance of Rousseau, who had been enamored of a Polish girl named Yadwigah. A nude woman lies on a couch in the middle of jungle. About her grows lush foliage in which fierce animals, surprisingly tame, lurk. His jungle scenes, though based on real objects and perhaps certain events, in their totality clearly existed only in his mind's eye.
Rousseau died in Paris on September 2, 1910, and Constantin Brancusi chiseled on his tombstone a eulogy composed by the poet Guillaume Apollinaire.
The Tiger Hunt
1896Cliffs
1897The Happy Quartet
1902View of the Bridge at Sevres and the Hills at Clamart St. Cloud and Bellevue
1908Bouquet of Flowers
1909The Banks of the Oise
1905The Eiffel Tower
1898Promeneurs dans un Parc
1908View of the Palais du Metropolitan
1909Eve
1907Portrait of Monsieur S
1898The Mill
1896Jungle with Lion
1910Bouquet of Flowers with an Ivy Branch
1909Portrait du pere del'artiste
The chair factory at Alfortville
1897Sevres Bridge
1895Corner of the Plateau of Bellevue
1902Marshal des Logis Frumence Biche of the 35th Artillery
1893The Fishermen and the Biplane
1908Portrait of Josephine the artist's second wife
1903Portrait of a Woman
1895View of the Ile Saint Louis from the Quai Henri IV Study
1909Rabbit
1908Still life with teapot and fruit
1910Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!)
1891The Walk in the Forest
1890Seine and Eiffel tower in the sunset
1910The Muse Inspiring the Poet
1909Portrait of a Woman
1895The chair factory at Alfortville
1897Vase of Flowers
1902Landscape in Montsouris Park with five figures
1910Bouquet of Flowers
1909Landscape with Factory
1906The Monument to Chopin in the Luxembourg Gardens
1909Landscape with Farmer
1896(Landscape with cow)
1886View of Bottom and MeudonBillancourt
1890Nude and Bear
1901Tropical Forest: Battling Tiger and Buffalo
1908Exotic Landscape
1910Portrait of a Man
1905Woman Walking in an Exotic Forest
1905War or the Ride of Discord
1894Negro Attacked by a Jaguar
1910Woman in Red in the Forest
1907Wagon in Front of the Mill
1879Portrait of A Woman
1905Mandrill in the Jungle
1909The Dream
1910The Monkeys in the Jungle
1909View of the Banks of the Oise
1906The Artist Painting his Wife
1905The Dam
1893The Muse Inspiring the Poet
1909The Repast of the Lion
1907Avenue de l'Observatoire
1898The Toll House
1890Rendez Vous in the Forest
1886Family Fishing
1895The Equatorial Jungle
1909Apes in the Orange Grove
1910House on the Outskirts of Paris
1902Centennial of Independence
1892A Lion Devouring its Prey
1905Village near a Factory
1908the Mill at Alfor
1905Landscape
1886The Artillerymen
1893Tropical Forest with Apes and Snake
1910Carnival Evening
1886Footbridge at Passy
1895Bathing at Alfortville
1904In the Fields
1910View of Parc de Montsouris
1895Landscape on the Banks of the Bievre at Becetre
1909Suburban Scene
1896Self Portrait from L'ile Saint Louis
1890Walking in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont
1909The Poultry Yard
1898Self Portrait
1905Portrait of Pierre Loti
1891View of the Outskirts of Paris
1896The storm tossed vessel
1899View of Malakoff Hauts de Seine
1903The Snake Charmer
1907Old Man Junier's Trap
1908The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope
1905Notre Dame View of the Ile Saint Louis from the Quai Henri IV
1909Landscape with Bridge
1877Self portrait
1900The Quarry
18971908
The Tabby
Landscape with Monkeys
1908The Bievre at Gentilly
1895The Waterfall
1910The wedding party
1905Jaguar Attacking a Horse
1910The Football players
1908The Pink Candle
1910A View of the Ile Saint Louis from Port Saint Nicolas Evening
1888The girl with a doll
1905Scout Attacked by a Tiger
1904Portrait of Jules Roc
1890Boy on the Rocks
1895Alleyway in the Park of Saint Cloud
1908Henri Rousseau as Orchestra Conductor
The Sleeping Gypsy
1897The Repast of the Lion
1907Liberty Inviting Artists to Take Part in the 22nd Exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists
1906The Representatives of Foreign Powers Coming to Salute the Republic as a Sign of Peace
1907View of Saint Cloud
1909The Flamingoes
1907Bouquet of Flowers
1910Ile de la Cite
1900Child with a Puppet
1903Portrait of Joseph Brummer
1909Park with Figures
1895The Lion Hunter
View of the Fortifications
1896Exotic Landscape
1908Rousseau possessed a generous and trusting nature.
In 1869 Rousseau married Clémence Boitard, the daughter of a cabinetmaker. They had six children, of whom only one survived. Clémence died in 1888 and ten years later he married Josephine Noury.