Rousseau

Rousseau emerged from humble circumstances – reflected in his nickname, the customs official. An employee in the Paris customs bureau, Rousseau was an autodidact who incrementally worked his way into a position among the artists who were renewing the art world at the turn of the century. It was a very hard journey – for years…ÿÿmore the art world mocked the laymans flat, icon-like figures, simple landscapes and, in his late phase, exotic jungle scenes. However his naive compositions in fact became an emblem that piqued the interest of the avant-garde. Rousseaus jungle paintings consisted of ornamental variations of plant leaves, among which he set brilliantly coloured predators, natives and naked women. In so doing, the artist evinced intuitive principles of design and compositions, which subsequent avant-garde artists had to work out for themselves with a lot of effort. Ultimately winning recognition as an uncompromising modernist, Rousseau inspired comparison with Derain, Cezanne, Matisse and Gauguin. He became acquainted with Apollinaire, Delaunay, Picabia, Brancusi and other important figures; in 1908, Picasso held a legendary banquet in his honor. Today, Rousseau’s myth, a fascinating mixture of primitive idyll and flight from civilization, of concrete and abstract, holds a secure place in the history of art.ÿ