Henri Rousseau
As a self-taught painter, Henri Rousseau was completely untrained in any established art techniques. He is best known for his naïve, or primitive, childlike jungle scenes. He was good at painting and music as a child, but spent most of his life in the profession of a customs officer at the outskirts of town. Because of this, he was also referred to as Le Douarneir, or the “Customs Officer.” He started painting seriously at the age of forty and by the time he was 49 he retired from his job in order to paint full time.
Although the painting establishment laughed and ridiculed his artistic style, he was highly regarded by artists who were outside the establishment, such as Picasso, Jean Hugo, Leger, Beckman, and later, painters of the Surrealist style. He was unaware that he was considered untrained by established painters, and believed himself to be a great realist painter. As such, he regarded himself very highly, and in his opinion, Picasso and he were the only two great living artists.
Rousseau’s painting style was unlike that on any other primitive painter, and many of his paintings were jungle scenes. Although he had never been to a jungle (he actually never left France), many of his paintings depicted oversized plants and wild animals lurking in the shadows. He made many trips to the botanical gardens, perused illustrated books, and observed closely studied taxidermied animals. There is a tale that he traveled to Mexico and fought in the subtropics as he was in the army, but this legend is untrue. He did, however, interview may soldiers who had served in the jungle in Mexico about their travels through the subtropics.
He also developed the painting style of portrait landscape, in which he would place a person or a couple in the foreground of a landscape painting. He may have been ridiculed during his lifetime, but he is now considered a self-trained genius, who created works of high artistic quality. His work has also been an inspiration for the contemporary animated film “Madagascar.”Henri Rousseau
Art of the Fantastic
One artist who prefigured the Surrealists' idea of fantasy with his fresh, naïve outlook on the world was the Frenchman, Henri Rousseau (1844-1910). Like Paul Klee, he defies all labels, and although he has been numbered among the Naïves or Primitives (two terms for untrained artists), he transcends this grouping. Known as Le Douanier, after a lifelong job in the Parisian customs office, Rousseau is a perfect example of the kind of artist in whom the Surrealists believed: the untaught genius whose eye could see much further than that of the trained artist.
Rousseau was an artist from an earlier era: he died in 1910, long before the Surrealist painters championed his art. Pablo Picasso, half-ironically, brought Rousseau to the attention of the art world with a dinner in his honor in 1908: an attention to which Rousseau thought himself fully entitled. Although Rousseau's greatest wish was to paint in an academic style, and he believed that the pictures he painted were absolutely real and convincing, the art world loved his intense stylization, direct vision, and fantastical images.
Such total confidence in himself as an artist enabled Rousseau to take ordinary book and catalogue illustrations and turn each one into a piece of genuine art: his jungle paintings, for instance, were not the product of any first-hand experience and his major source for the exotic plant life that filled these strange canvases was actually the tropical plant house in Paris.
Despite some glaring disproportions, exaggerations, and banalities, Rousseau's paintings have a mysterious poetry. Boy on the rock
(1895-97; 55 x 46 cm (21 3/4 x 18 in)) is both funny and alarming. The rocks seem to be like a series of mountain peaks and the child effortlessly dwarves them. His wonderfully stripy garments, his peculiar mask of a face, the uncertainty as to whether he is seated on the peaks or standing above them, all comes across with a sort of dreamlike force. Only a child can so bestride the world with such ease, and only a childlike artist with a simple, naïve vision can understand this elevation and make us see it as dauntingly true.
Although the painting establishment laughed and ridiculed his artistic style, he was highly regarded by artists who were outside the establishment, such as Picasso, Jean Hugo, Leger, Beckman, and later, painters of the Surrealist style. He was unaware that he was considered untrained by established painters, and believed himself to be a great realist painter. As such, he regarded himself very highly, and in his opinion, Picasso and he were the only two great living artists.
Rousseau’s painting style was unlike that on any other primitive painter, and many of his paintings were jungle scenes. Although he had never been to a jungle (he actually never left France), many of his paintings depicted oversized plants and wild animals lurking in the shadows. He made many trips to the botanical gardens, perused illustrated books, and observed closely studied taxidermied animals. There is a tale that he traveled to Mexico and fought in the subtropics as he was in the army, but this legend is untrue. He did, however, interview may soldiers who had served in the jungle in Mexico about their travels through the subtropics.
He also developed the painting style of portrait landscape, in which he would place a person or a couple in the foreground of a landscape painting. He may have been ridiculed during his lifetime, but he is now considered a self-trained genius, who created works of high artistic quality. His work has also been an inspiration for the contemporary animated film “Madagascar.”Henri Rousseau
Art of the Fantastic
One artist who prefigured the Surrealists' idea of fantasy with his fresh, naïve outlook on the world was the Frenchman, Henri Rousseau (1844-1910). Like Paul Klee, he defies all labels, and although he has been numbered among the Naïves or Primitives (two terms for untrained artists), he transcends this grouping. Known as Le Douanier, after a lifelong job in the Parisian customs office, Rousseau is a perfect example of the kind of artist in whom the Surrealists believed: the untaught genius whose eye could see much further than that of the trained artist.
Rousseau was an artist from an earlier era: he died in 1910, long before the Surrealist painters championed his art. Pablo Picasso, half-ironically, brought Rousseau to the attention of the art world with a dinner in his honor in 1908: an attention to which Rousseau thought himself fully entitled. Although Rousseau's greatest wish was to paint in an academic style, and he believed that the pictures he painted were absolutely real and convincing, the art world loved his intense stylization, direct vision, and fantastical images.
Such total confidence in himself as an artist enabled Rousseau to take ordinary book and catalogue illustrations and turn each one into a piece of genuine art: his jungle paintings, for instance, were not the product of any first-hand experience and his major source for the exotic plant life that filled these strange canvases was actually the tropical plant house in Paris.
Despite some glaring disproportions, exaggerations, and banalities, Rousseau's paintings have a mysterious poetry. Boy on the rock
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(1895-97; 55 x 46 cm (21 3/4 x 18 in)) is both funny and alarming. The rocks seem to be like a series of mountain peaks and the child effortlessly dwarves them. His wonderfully stripy garments, his peculiar mask of a face, the uncertainty as to whether he is seated on the peaks or standing above them, all comes across with a sort of dreamlike force. Only a child can so bestride the world with such ease, and only a childlike artist with a simple, naïve vision can understand this elevation and make us see it as dauntingly true.
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