(1844-1910)
Who Was Henri Rousseau?
While working as a toll collector in Paris, Henri Rousseau taught himself to color and exhibited his work virtually annually from 1886 until the top of his life. He was once given the nickname "Le Douanier" ("the customs officer") by means of his acquaintances in the Parisian avant-garde. Despite his connections with other artists and sellers, he by no means profited from his paintings; on the other hand, works like "The Dream," "The Sleeping Gypsy" and "Carnival Evening" influenced many artists who came after him.
Early Life and Work
Henri Julien Félix Rousseau was once born into a center-class family within the the city of Laval in northwest France on May 21, 1844. Rousseau attended school in Laval till 1860. In his overdue teenagers, he labored for a legal professional after which enlisted in the army, although he by no means saw battle. In 1868, Rousseau left the army and moved to Paris, where he began working as a toll collector on the entrance to town.
Rousseau as Artist
Meanwhile, Rousseau had begun to paint in his spare time. He by no means had a formal art schooling; as a substitute, he taught himself by means of copying artwork in the art museums of Paris and by way of sketching within the town's botanical gardens and herbal historical past museums.
Perhaps because he had not studied artwork in keeping with any prescribed manner or under any trainer's supervision, Rousseau advanced a highly personal style. His portraits and landscapes frequently had a childlike or "naïve" quality, since he had not learned anatomy or standpoint; their vibrant colours, ambiguous spaces, non-reasonable scale and dramatic intensity gave them a dreamlike quality. Sometimes Rousseau included main points impressed by artwork he had considered at museums or pictures he had observed in books and magazines, reworking them into components of his own visions.
Many of Rousseau's signature artwork depicted human figures or wild animals in jungle-like settings. The first of these works was "Tiger in a Tropical Storm" of 1891 (now on the National Gallery in London).
'Le Douanier' and the Avant-Garde
Although Rousseau's artwork was once now not understood or authorized by means of the conservative, legitimate art global of Paris, he used to be in a position to show his work in annual exhibitions organized through the Société des Artistes Indépendants. He submitted works to those open, un-juried displays from 1886 till the top of his lifestyles. His art used to be noticed and appreciated by means of established artists such as Camille Pissarro and Paul Signac, who praised his direct, emotional solution to his subject material.
In 1893, on the age of 49, Rousseau retired from his work as a toll collector and dedicated himself to his artwork. That year he met the writer Alfred Jarry, who gave him the nickname "Le Douanier" ("the customs officer"). Jarry introduced Rousseau to members of the Parisian inventive and literary avant-garde, together with Pablo Picasso, Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob and Marie Laurencin, all of whom become admirers of his artwork. Rousseau also formed trade relationships with vital sellers; alternatively, in spite of those connections, he made very little cash from his artwork.
Death and Artistic Legacy
Rousseau died on September 2, 1910, in Paris. His work persisted to steer other artists, from his good friend Picasso and Fernand Léger to Max Ernst and the Surrealists. His paintings are held in museum collections around the world. The Museum of Modern Art in New York owns two of his most renowned works, "The Sleeping Gypsy" (1897) and "The Dream" (1910), which depicts a nude girl on a couch magically transported to a lush jungle inhabited through exotic birds and beasts. Other works belong to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia; and the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, Switzerland, among many other institutions.
- Name: Henri Julien Félix Rousseau
- Birth Year: 1844
- Birth date: May 21, 1844
- Birth City: Laval
- Birth Country: France
- Gender: Male
- Best Known For: French artist Henri Rousseau was a self-taught painter, influencing the Parisian avant-garde motion.
- Industries
- Art
- Painting
- Astrological Sign: Gemini
- Nacionalities
- Death Year: 1910
- Death date: September 2, 1910
- Death City: Paris
- Death Country: France
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- Article Title: Henri Rousseau Biography
- Author: Biography.com Editors
- Website Name: The Biography.com website
- Url: https://www.biography.com/artists/henri-rousseau
- Access Date:
- Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
- Last Updated: November 19, 2020
- Original Published Date: April 2, 2014
- Nothing makes me so glad as to watch nature and to paint what I see."[From a 1910 interview; cited in 'Henri Rousseau 1844-1910' (p. 25), by means of Cornelia Stabenow.]
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