Henri Rousseau, called le Douanier

Henri Rousseau was born in Laval (Mayenne/France) in 1844.His employment confers the nickname of " Douanier" to him. He enters artistic life is relatively late, and it is only in 1886 that its fame increases at the time of the participation in the Show of the Independent ones. The public hardly appreciates his manner of painting; Henri Rousseau never " learned " painting and does not belong to any school...

To paint, Henri Rousseau endeavours to reproduce what he sees (simple visible reality), and tries to make coincide what he sees with what he knows of the facts.He seeks to be precise and tries to emphasize as much as possible the detail.

His lack of training is fateful with the concept of perspective ; he thinks according to the bidimensionality laws.

To add to these elements of " style ", Henri Rousseau distributes the color in a uniform way, which results in insulating even more the objects from each other. Each shape is seen separately, generaly fullface, and its outlines are very clear. Concerning the painting " Portrait of a woman ", the character represented is supposed to be a friend of Henri Rousseau. Yadwigha, a Pole, is also supposed to have inspired the artist in the composition of the Dream...

Henri Rousseau finds the inspiration in the botanical garden (Paris), and uses an album " Wild animals ". Henri Rousseau was taken of anguish and fear when he painted his scenes of the jungle, because he had an extraodinary imagination. It was so extraordinary that he had to open the window to dissipate his giddiness... Impressive,isn't it ?