Henri Rousseau Biography
Henri Julien Félix Rousseau was born on 21 May 1844 in Laval and was a French painter. After abandoning his studies, he volunteered for the infantry in 1863 and at the age of twenty-seven worked as a tax collector in the Paris municipal toll office. It was here that he gained the nickname "the Customs Officer".
During the years spent in customs, Rousseau created his first works, which were still little known, such as "Winter Landscape" with a war episode. In 1884, Rousseau had the opportunity to attend the Louvre Museum, where he self-taught himself the styles of the most famous authors. In the same year, he was welcomed at the Salon des Indépendants and at the Salon d'Automne from 1905 to 1907.
Rousseau's works, characterized by a naive style, represent vaguely dreamy exotic settings. In them, Rousseau demonstrates considerable attention to proportions, perspective and distribution of light, managing to create a two-dimensional space which, together with the unreal colour, transforms the characters into myths and emblems, thus overcoming the rational knowledge of time and space . Rousseau's painting represents a significant experience in the figurative culture of the French avant-garde. Despite this relevance, the artist did not achieve great commercial success during his lifetime. In fact, he constantly struggled with debt until his death on September 2, 1910 at the Hôpital Necker in Paris.
