Scroll
to Top



Henri Rousseau

1844-1910

WOMAN WALKING IN AN EXOTIC FOREST


Henri Rousseau<BR> Enlarge

Henri Rousseau (ahn REE roo SOH) was born in northwest France in the city of Laval. The home where the family lived was part of a tower which was fortification for a town. His "house" was hundreds of years old.

He liked to draw and was determined to become an artist, but his parents didn't realize they had such a talented son.

He enjoyed music and played the clarinet. Once he wrote a waltz and named it for his wife. (Don't confuse him with Jean Jacques Rousseau, the composer.)

He served for a time in the French army and fought in Mexico, or so he told people. However some say he had been in jail during that period of his life.

He worked as a toll collector for the city of Paris. His friends called him Le Douanier (luh dwan YAY) which means custom official, but actually he just collected toll money. When he was 49 years old he retired from this job and devoted the rest of his life to painting.

He was a primitive artist; self taught. He would go to the Louvre and copy the paintings. Even when he started making his own paintings he sometimes copied from other artists such as Delacroix's tiger when he painted Scout Attacked by a Tiger.

picture2
The Scout Attacked by a Tiger (detail)
Enlarge

Life in the wild is portrayed in many of his paintings as in Fight Between a Tiger and a Buffalo.

picture3
Fight Between a Tiger and a Buffalo (detail)
Enlarge

He enjoyed going to the botanical garden in Paris and looking at the plants and the zoo animals. Aat the Jardin des Plantes he had a secret arrangement with one of the gardeners who let him spend hours painting the greenery. Instead of making the plants their actual size, he would make them as big as trees. This made the picture resemble a fantasy world. Many people just laughed at his paintings because they looked so unreal.

When painting portraits for people he took his sitter's measurements as a tailor might measure them for clothing. Some people thought this was a strange way to begin a portrait.

A lion lurks near in The Sleeping Gypsy which shows impending danger for the woman in this night scene by Rousseau.

picture4
The Sleeping Gypsy (detail)
Enlarge

He had unusual ideas for paintings. In The Football Players the men look as if they are on a stage performing a ballet.

picture5
The Football Players (detail)
Enlarge

He took some of his artwork to the Salon, which was an official art exhibit in Paris, but they wouldn't even consider it. He went to a group of independent artists and exhibited Carnival Evening . Picasso liked his work and saw the value in it. Picasso even gave a banquet in his honor. Rousseau had found a place of acceptance.

He was married twice. With his first wife Clemence, he had nine children, but she died and so did seven of their children. His second wife also died after they had been married for four years.

Rousseau wanted to be known as a great artist, but was unappreciated for most of his life. In the end he was a rather lonely man. He died at the age of 66 from a leg infection. Only seven people attended his funeral. About a year after his death his paintings began to sell, but he had not lived to see the recognition he craved.

picture6
This biography was written by Patsy Stevens, a retired teacher.

References:

Venezia, Mike. Henri Rousseau, New York: Children’s Press, 2002.
Order

Gerlings, Charlotte. 100 Great Artists, New York: Gramercy Books, 2006.
Order

Take the online test




A frequent question:
"Who wrote this biography
and when was it written?"
Look on this Reference Citations Chart.

Activities

Online ActivitiesPrintable Activities
Take the Online Test for this Artist Print Test for this Artist
Online Jigsaw Puzzle Print Study Sheet
Online Crossword Puzzle Print Crossword Puzzle
  Print Word Search
Online Word Scramble Print Word Scramble
  Print Coloring
  Print Alphabetical
  Print Worksheet
Memory Puzzle  
Who Is The Artist  



Art Gallery Famous Paintings Volume 1

Art Gallery Famous Paintings Volume 2

Name the Painting


Research Links

Henri Rousseau Biography

Rousseau Biography
from the Artchive

Henri Rousseau,
works of art

Rousseau Art Lesson

Henri Rousseau Lesson Ideas


Videos







A short film about Henri Rousseau


Books
Search:
Press "Go" to search for books about Henri Rousseau.
Library

A LIBRARY OF
ONLINE BOOKS and BOOK PREVIEWS


Order the following books from Amazon.

Henri Rousseau, 1844-1910
by Cornelia Stabenow (selected pages)

Early Childhood Themes Using Art Masterpieces
by Sandra E. Fisher (selected pages)

Art safari: an adventure in looking for children and parents at the Museum of Modern Art
by Joyce Raimondo (selected pages)

Color Your Own Great Flower Paintings
by Marty Noble (selected pages)

Credits and Solutions

Puzzles on these pages courtesy of
Songs of Praise and Armored Penguin

Page Comments
Please leave a comment for this page.

View all Comments

This page displayed 101,292 times.

This is a mobile page of Garden of Praise. You are using a desktop computer. Try viewing the mobile pages on your smart phone.