Henri Rousseau

Henri Julien Félix Rousseau (May 21, 1844 – September 2, 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 Acadademic painters, Auguste Clement and Jean-Leon Gerome. Essentially, he was self-taught and is considered to be a naïve or primitive painter.

A Carnival Evning, 1886

His best-known paintings depict jungle scenes, even though he never left France or saw a jungle. Stories spread by admirers that his army service included the French expeditionary force to Mexico are unfounded. 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. To the critic  Arsene Alexandre, he described his frequent visits to the Jardin des Plantes: "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."

Along with his exotic scenes there was a concurrent output of smaller topographical images of the city and its suburbs.

                                              The Sleeping Gypsy, 1897

He claimed to have invented a new genre of portrait landscape, which he achieved by starting a painting with a specific view, such as a favourite part of the city, and then depicting a person in the foreground.

Rousseau's work exerted an extensive influence on several generations of avant-garde artists, including Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Fernand Leger Jean Mentzinger, Max Beckmann, and the Surrealists. According to Roberta Smith, an art critic writing in The New York Times, "Beckmann’s amazing self-portraits, for example, descend from the brusque, concentrated forms of Rousseau’s portrait of the writer Pierre Loti."

In 1911, a retrospective exhibition of Rousseau's works was shown at the Salon des Independants. His paintings were also shown at the first Blaue Reiter exhibition.

                                                      Exotic Landscape, 1908

Critics have noted the influence of Rousseau on Wallace Steven's poetry. See, for instance, Stevens's Floral Decorations for Bananas in the collection Harmonium.

The American poet Sylvia Plath was a great admirer of Rousseau, referencing his art, as well as drawing inspiration from his works in her poetry. The poem, Yadwigha, on a Red Couch, Among Lilies (1958), is based upon his painting, The Dream, whilst the poem Snakecharmer (1957) is based upon his painting The Snake Charmer.

The song, The Jungle Line, by Joni Mitchell, is based upon a Rousseau painting.

Underground comic artist Bill Griffith drew a four-page autobiographical sketch of Rousseau, A Couch in the Sun, which was included in issue #2 of the Arcade anthology.

The visual style of Michel Ocelot's 1998 animation film, Kirikou and the Sorceress, is partly inspired by Rousseau, particularly the depiction of the jungle vegetation.

A Rousseau painting was used as an inspiration for the 2005 animated film Madagascar.

                                                 Muse Inspiring the Poet, 1909