Henri Rousseau

File:RepastLion.JPG

The Repast of the Lion

Henri Rousseau (May 21, 1844 - September 2, 1910) was a French Post-Impressionist painter in the Naive or Primitive manner. He is also known as Le Douanier ("the customs officer") after his place of employment. Ridiculed during his life, he is now seen as an untaught genius whose works are of the highest artistic quality.

After half a lifetime spent in menial employment, Rousseau took up painting as a hobby and attempted to assume the academic manner of establishment artists such as Bouguereau, but instead created works of charming, stylized fantasy. His ingenuousness was extreme, and he was not aware that establishment artists considered him untutored. In 1908 Picasso gave a banquet, half serious half burlesque, in his honor.

Rousseau is now best known for his jungle scenes, which he claimed were inspired by his non-existent travel in Mexico, but in fact his sources were illustrated books and visits to the zoo and botanical gardens in Paris. His work "The Sleeping Gypsy" (1897), which shows a lion musing over a sleeping man in eerie moonlight, is one of the best-known works of the modern era.

Henri Rousseau passed away in 1910 and was interred in the Cimetière de Bagneux.