About the Artist
Henri Rousseau
Henri Rousseau (1844 – 1910) was a French post-impressionist painter in the Naive or Primitive manner. He was also known as Le Douanier (the customs officer), a humorous description of his occupation as a toll and tax collector. He started painting seriously in his early forties; by age 49, he retired from his job to work on his art full-time. Ridiculed during his lifetime by critics, he came to be recognized as a self-taught genius whose works are of high artistic quality. Rousseau's work exerted an extensive influence on several generations of avant-garde artists. Rousseau claimed he had "no teacher other than nature", although he admitted he had received "some advice" from two established Academic painters. His best-known paintings depict jungle scenes, even though he never left France or saw a jungle. His inspiration came from illustrations in children's books and the botanical gardens in Paris, as well as tableaux of taxidermy wild animals. He had also met soldiers during his term of service who had survived the French expedition to Mexico, and he listened to their stories of the subtropical country they had encountered. Of the botanical gardens, he said "When I go into the glass houses and I see the strange plants of exotic lands, it seems to me that I enter into a dream."
