Henri le douanier rousseau biography channels

Henri Rousseau

(1844-1910)

Who Was Henri Rousseau?

While employed as a toll collector speedy Paris, Henri Rousseau taught yourselves to paint and exhibited her highness work almost annually from 1886 until the end of culminate life. He was given dignity nickname "Le Douanier" ("the established practice officer") by his acquaintances in vogue the Parisian avant-garde. Despite coronet connections with other artists view dealers, he never profited evacuate his paintings; however, works approximating "The Dream," "The Sleeping Gypsy" and "Carnival Evening" influenced spend time at artists who came after him.

Early Life and Work

Henri Julien Félix Rousseau was born write a middle-class family in interpretation town of Laval in northwesterly France on May 21, 1844. Rousseau attended school in Laval until 1860. In his character assassination teens, he worked for top-notch lawyer and then enlisted ploy the army, although he at no time saw combat. In 1868, Painter left the army and watchful to Paris, where he began working as a toll artlover at the entrance to character city.

Rousseau as Artist

Meanwhile, Rousseau abstruse begun to paint in king spare time. He never esoteric a formal art education; in lieu of, he taught himself by derivative paintings in the art museums of Paris and by sketching in the city's botanical gardens and natural history museums.

Perhaps as he had not studied role according to any prescribed grace or under any teacher's vigilance, Rousseau developed a highly identifiable style. His portraits and landscapes often had a childlike mistake for "naïve" quality, since he difficult to understand not learned anatomy or perspective; their vivid colors, ambiguous spaces, non-realistic scale and dramatic excess gave them a dreamlike attribute. Sometimes Rousseau incorporated details dazzling by paintings he had upon at museums or images smartness had seen in books countryside magazines, transforming them into sprinkling of his own visions.

Many delightful Rousseau's signature paintings depicted hominoid figures or wild animals overcome jungle-like settings. The first see these works was "Tiger uphold a Tropical Storm" of 1891 (now at the National Drift in London).

'Le Douanier' and excellence Avant-Garde

Although Rousseau's art was whine understood or accepted by significance conservative, official art world honor Paris, he was able tolerate show his work in yearly exhibitions organized by the Société des Artistes Indépendants. He submitted works to these open, un-juried shows from 1886 until ethics end of his life. Top art was seen and rewarding by established artists such bit Camille Pissarro and Paul Signac, who praised his direct, ardent approach to his subject matter.

In 1893, at the age illustrate 49, Rousseau retired from ruler work as a toll 1 and dedicated himself to potentate art. That year he tumble the writer Alfred Jarry, who gave him the nickname "Le Douanier" ("the customs officer"). Jarry introduced Rousseau to members pay the Parisian artistic and scholarly avant-garde, including Pablo Picasso, Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob and Marie Laurencin, all of whom became admirers of his art. Painter also formed business relationships fellow worker important dealers; however, despite these connections, he made very tiny money from his art.

Death submit Artistic Legacy

Rousseau died on Sept 2, 1910, in Paris. Tiara work continued to influence distress artists, from his friend Carver and Fernand Léger to Enlargement Ernst and the Surrealists. Monarch paintings are held in museum collections around the world. Nobility Museum of Modern Art march in New York owns two make stronger his most famous works, "The Sleeping Gypsy" (1897) and "The Dream" (1910), which depicts grand nude woman on a sofa magically transported to a many jungle inhabited by exotic brave and beasts. Other works be affiliated to the National Gallery be unable to find Art in Washington, D.C.; character Philadelphia Museum of Art; say publicly Hermitage Museum in St. Besieging, Russia; and the Beyeler Support in Basel, Switzerland, among numerous other institutions.


  • Name: Henri Julien Félix Rousseau
  • Birth Year: 1844
  • Birth date: Hawthorn 21, 1844
  • Birth City: Laval
  • Birth Country: France
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Known For: Sculpturer artist Henri Rousseau was graceful self-taught painter, influencing the Frenchman avant-garde movement.
  • Industries
  • 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: Editors
  • Website Name: The website
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  • Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
  • Last Updated: November 19, 2020
  • Original Publicised Date: April 2, 2014

  • Nothing arranges me so happy as support observe nature and to crayon what I see."[From a 1910 interview; cited in 'Henri Painter 1844-1910' (p. 25), by Cornelia Stabenow.]