Henri, from Laval, France, and dubbed “Le Douanier” (customs officer) after his occupation found primitive art late in life. He at once mastered a landscape formula, and beginning after 1904 created more than twenty large fanatistic jungle paintings. They evidence his mastery of a formal language, oblivious of convention, that owes nothing to traditional methods. The images, smooth, vivid, and clearly defined, are flat and fluid against dense but dimensionless greenery, and although unreal and extraordinary, are rendered in meticulous botanical detail.
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Exotic Landscape, 1910 51-1/4 x 64 in. (130.2 x 162.6 cm) The Norton Simon Foundation Henri Rousseau was a customs inspector who did not begin to paint until after the age of forty. His fame rests on his magical landscapes with their vivid, lush vegetation, exotic flowers, and wild animals. He called these landscapes his "Mexican pictures," fostering the romantic myth that in his youth he had served in the army in Mexico. In fact, he received his inspiration from the Paris botanical garden and zoo. Although considered a "primitive," Rousseau was greatly admired by the young avant-garde painters, including Picasso and Braque. |
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