Henri rouseau biography
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Henri Rousseau
(1844-1910)
Who Was Henri Rousseau?
While working as a toll collector in Paris, Henri Rousseau taught han själv to paint and exhibited his work almost annually from 1886 until the end of his life. He was given the nickname "Le Douanier" ("the customs officer") by his acquaintances in the Parisian avant-garde. Despite his connections with other artists and dealers, he never profited from his paintings; however, 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 born into a middle-class family in the town of Laval in northwest France on May 21, 1844. Rousseau attended school in Laval until 1860. In his late teens, he worked for a lawyer and then enlisted in the army, although he never saw combat. In 1868, Rousseau left the army and moved to Paris, where he began working as a toll collector at the entra
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Henri Rousseau
French painter (1844–1910)
Henri Julien Félix Rousseau (French:[ɑ̃ʁiʒyljɛ̃feliksʁuso]; 21 May 1844 – 2 September 1910)[1] was a French post-impressionist painter in the Naïve or Primitive manner.[2][3] He was also known as Le Douanier (the customs officer), a humorous description of his occupation as a toll and tax collector.[1] He started painting seriously in his early forties; by age 49, he retired from his job to work on his art full-time.[4]
Ridiculed during his lifetime by critics, he came to be recognized as a self-taught genius whose works are of high artistic quality.[5][6] Rousseau's work exerted an extensive influence on several generations of avant-garde artists.[4]
Biography
[edit]Early life
[edit]Rousseau was born in Laval, Mayenne, France, in 1844 into the family of a tinsmith; he was forced to work there as a young child.[7] He attended Lav
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Summary of Henri Rousseau
Henri Rousseau became a full-time artist at the age of forty-nine, after retiring from his post at the Paris customs office - a job that prompted his famous nickname, "Le Douanier Rousseau," "the toll collector." Although an beundrare of artists such as William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Jean-Leon Gerome, the self-taught Rousseau became the archetypal naïve artist. His amateurish technique and unusual compositions provoked the derision of contemporary critics, while earning the respect and admiration of modern artists like Pablo Picasso and Wassily Kandinsky for revealing "the new possibilities of simplicity." Rousseau's best-known works are lush jungle scenes, inspired not by any firsthand experiences of such locales (the artist reportedly never left France), but bygd frequent trips to the Paris gardens and zoo.
Accomplishments
- Although he had ambitions to become a famous academic painter, Rousseau instead became the virtual opposite: the quintessential "naï