Talk:Henri Rousseau

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The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Edofedinburgh 10:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Henri Rousseau (Born 1844) (Died 1910)

Henri Rousseau was also known by his nickname “Le Douanier Rousseau”, which means “Customs Officer” although he did work in the customs business; he never ascended to the rank of officer. He had little formal education and took up painting as a hobby and later retired early from his customs job, (in 1893) so he could devote himself to art. He never learnt to draw from anybody, and his self learnt style was what made his works so wonderful and unique. Nobody knew how to copy Henri Rousseau’s work, it was simply too hard to imitate such a naïve style of paining..

His first career was in the army, and he claims to have served in Mexico and a lot of his art has been claimed to have been inspired by his travels there, but in actual fact, Henri Rousseau’s sources were illustrations from books which he would redraw, and also from his imagination. He was first considered part of the avant-garde by the Spanish and is now considered one of the first painters of innocent art.

Although his is now considered to be an extraordinarily ingenuous, he suffered much ridicule when he lived (although he sometimes interpreted sarcastic remarks literally and took them as praise) as well as enduring great poverty. However, his faith in his own abilities never wavered. He tried to paint in the academic manner of such traditionalist artists as Bouguereau and Gérôme, but it was the innocence and charm of his work that won him the admiration of the avant-garde: in 1908 Picasso held a banquet in his honor, half serious, half mockery.

Rousseau is very well known for his jungle scenes, the first one he did was “Surprised!” (It is now in the National Gallery, London) it was painted in 1891. His jungle paintings show his great imaginative power, and he reveals his extraordinary ability to retain a fresh look, even when working on a large scale image. It is said that his jungle paintings were inspired by his time spent in Mexico with the army, but these claims are false, in fact, Henri Rousseau never went to Mexico, and his sources for his wonderful paintings are from zoos and botanical gardens found in Paris.

-Frostickle

Henri Rousseau's lush tropical gardens recall a private dream space. Where dreams can be dreamed, where problems can be resolved, where lions and panthers can sit beside us in peace and harmony.

Henri had 6 children with his first wife, 1 of which survived.

My revert...
I just reverted a change that replaced a section with a long text in French. Now, that may have been a worthwhile contribution, but I can't read enough French to know, so if someone who does wants to check it out in the history and translate anything useful, that would be great. Pinball22 17:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Automatic translation from English producing garbled French! Man vyi 18:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Aha. Thank you for checking! :) Pinball22 19:55, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

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Link Pierre Loti,
There should be a wiki-link to Pierre Loti by his picture text.

--Zzalpha (talk) 17:45, 26 April 2020 (UTC)