1844 -1910 · Paris and imaginary jungles

Lush jungles, frontal figures and enigmatic stories make Henri Rousseau, known as the Customs Officer, an essential autodidact in modern art.

Henri Rousseau was born in Laval in 1844. After interrupted studies, a stint in the army and various jobs, he moved to Paris and worked on grants, an administration responsible for collecting taxes on goods entering the city. This position later earned him the inaccurate but enduring nickname "Customs Officer". Rousseau painted outside of official schools and workshops. He copied at the Louvre, observed the botanical gardens, consulted illustrated books, photographs, postcards and stuffed animals. From 1886, the Salon des Indépendants, without a jury, allowed him to exhibit regularly. The public and critics often mocked his perspective, his immobile figures and his drawing considered naive. Rousseau, however, pursues a high ambition: he considers himself a modern painter capable of competing with the masters. The War, presented in 1894, transforms the allegory into a frontal nightmare: a rider crosses a field of bodies under a torn sky. The sleeping Bohemian, in 1897, places a musician lying in a nocturnal desert facing a motionless lion; the scene seems as simple as a tale and as indecipherable as a dream. Rousseau never traveled to the tropics. His jungles are born from Paris, the Jardin des Plantes and his imagination. Rousseau never traveled to the tropics. His jungles are born from Paris, the Jardin des Plantes and his imagination. He never traveled to the tropics. His jungles are born from Paris, the Jardin des Plantes and his imagination. He superimposes leaf after leaf, invents starry flowers and hides animals in one theatrical vegetation. The Snake Charmer brings out a black silhouette in the moonlight while the reptiles respond to the flute. Le Rêve, completed in 1910, installed a naked woman on a sofa in the middle of an impossible forest, bringing together bourgeois living room, desire and nature. Picasso, Apollinaire, Delaunay, Brâncuimbabwe and the young avant-gardes gradually recognized the power of this universe. In 1908, Picasso even organized a banquet in his honor. In 1908, Picasso even organized a banquet in his honor. In 1908, Picasso even organized a banquet in his honor. Died in Paris in 1910, Rousseau then influenced Dadaists, Surrealists and modern painters. His patient precision proves that imagination can be more convincing than direct experience. The "Henri Rousseau" selection puts particularly with regard to The Dream and The Sleeping Bohemian. His reading favors composition.

Rousseau never saw the jungle he painted: he built it leaf by leaf until the invention became a denser, calmer and truer place than a travel souvenir.