Original subtitles

Henri Julien Félix Rousseau was born in 1844 in Laval, a beautiful town in the northwest

of France.

His family was in the tinsmithing trade, and Henri was expected to share in the labor, even

as a young boy.

They weren't destitute, they did okay, and they were able to afford to send Henri to

high school where he did well in his art and music classes.

You may notice he was born a bit earlier than most of our Post-Impressionists.

Rousseau didn't get started painting until he was in his 40s.

He worked regular office jobs for most of his life, starting in a law firm, then he joined

the military for four years, then he moved to Paris to work as a tax collector.

When Henri was 24, he married his landlord's 15-year-old daughter, Clemence Boitard, with

whom they went on to have six kids.

Though, tragically, all but one would die in their infancy.

But soon he was bored of his job, and he much preferred visiting the Louvre.

Most of his life was spent working in a toll booth, collecting taxes on the goods people

entered the city with.

He later was given the nickname the Duanier, or the Customs Officer, which is actually a more

elevated title than he held.

But, as we will see, Henri was not very strict with the truth in life or in art.

After just a couple of years after teaching himself to paint after work, in 1886 he was

given a chance to exhibit some of his paintings at the Salon des Independents.

And he decides to show Carnival Evening, a beautiful and bizarre painting that was his

entrance into the Paris art scene, a gorgeously detailed forest against a beautiful sunset.

Two very small and awkward figures stand in the middle.

The Salon put his work off in a dark corner, though.

It was quite different than what people were used to.

It's quite obviously not at all an impressionist painting.

It was a painting that, while nice-looking, exhibits all sorts of technical errors that the

critics immediately pick up on and tear him to shreds in the newspapers.

But despite his lack of painterly sophistication in the eyes of the critics, he starts to develop

a small cult following, and he would show in nearly every Salon des Independents show

for the rest of his career.

He wasn't selling much art—definitely not enough to live off of—and it would be seven

years after his first Salon show before he was finally able to retire from collecting taxes.

So, he continued working long hours in his day job, but somehow found the time and the

energy to paint almost every night after work.

At the 1891 Independent Salon, he unveils Tiger in a Tropical Storm—a very large and

dynamic painting.

It's his first jungle scene, and it rightfully created a stir.

It is a stunner, and this is the type of work he would become famous for later in his career.

Before we talk too much in detail about this piece, we need to back up for a minute and

talk about how he got to this unusual and idiosyncratic style.

As I mentioned, he was entirely self-taught.

Besides his high school classes, Henri never took any drawing or painting lessons.

Okay, that's not unheard of.

There are a few post-impressionists we've seen that didn't go to art school either.

But the difference with Henri is that he didn't get tutored or mentored by another artist either.

He didn't have a Gauguin or a Pissarro to take him under his wing.

De Louvre was his only teacher.

In 1884, he got permission from the museum to draw and paint in the building so they wouldn't

harass him when he brought his art supplies in to work.

Rousseau's work bears a strong resemblance to a style of folk art and portrait painting that

was common in France at the time, when you would go to a fair and pay a few francs to

have you or your child's portrait painted.

It was a codified and simplified process, kind of like a template that was used to paint quickly.

It was more craft than art, and in these portraits, people looked the same with similar features

and the same method of painting used each time.

They were flat, with very little shading and modeling, no real sense of light and shadow,

almost like paper cut-outs pasted on a background.

Depth, shading, light, perspective—these are all more advanced aspects of painting

that artists usually go to school to learn how to do.

So your average discount portrait painter or self-taught artist probably doesn't have those skills.

It still takes skill, mind you, and folk art can be beautiful.

And remember, it's really only a pretty small urban elite who gets to swan around the salons

and galleries of Paris. The simple folk art style is probably the only one that millions of French

in the smaller towns and countryside are really familiar with.

So there's a bit of cultural snobbery going on when the critics diss Rousseau.

It looks to them how a velvet painting of Elvis or dogs playing cards might look to us today.

Unlike the country portrait painter, Rousseau had access to one of the greatest museums of fine art

art at the Louvre. Yet he didn't seem to have much interest or skill in learning more sophisticated

techniques or how to paint more naturalistically. But despite the technical shortcomings of his style,

it's easy to see how innovative and brilliant the other aspects of his work are. Because one look at

his later work and you can see these are extremely intricate and difficult paintings, with so many fine

details and layers to his paintings to explore. While his peers often just lightly brushed in the leaves

of trees and dotted in colors for flowers, you can see Rousseau still painstakingly paints each and every

one with great precision to build up his complex exotic scenes. So an intriguing question to ask is,

was this folksy, unsophisticated painting style something Rousseau deliberately adopted? Or was it

genuinely because he lacked the training and knowledge to do anything different? The latter case is called

naive art and there's plenty of examples of it in history. A lot of early American painters had a

naive style, since the first American art school didn't open until 1805, and very few colonial painters

had the connections or money to go train professionally in Europe. You can see this famous early American

painting, Peaceable Kingdom, a look that's pretty similar to Rousseau's. It's also

possible he wasn't naive at all and deliberately painted this way. Primitivism was a bit of trend in

the late 19th century, where artists would try to emulate the simple artistic styles of so-called

primitive societies in a nostalgic way. It's a trend that had troubling racist overtones and cultural

appropriation, but Rousseau might have just liked it because it gave his paintings a raw,

dreamlike feel to match his exotic settings. Whatever the case, it will be more than 10 years

of painting other things that he's not very good at before he'll paint another jungle scene. It's like

releasing a hit song and then refusing to perform it for a decade. Why he did this, I'm not sure.

If I had to speculate, it seems like he saw how popular the jungle was, but then got nervous about

all the stuff he didn't know about art and put himself through an education of painting the other

traditional themes of landscapes, cityscapes, portraits, and still lives. He goes on to make

awkward paintings like this one of a sawmill. While it has its charms, this took him two years

and has none of the innovative and sophisticated types of painting that we will come to know him for.

It's flat and stilted, like the scenery in a play, and just kind of dull and boring.

This is a much more fun and interesting painting. He kept trying with figures, and while he makes some

improvement, he seems to have a blind spot here. His technique of taking the same shape and repeating

it over and over the way he can with plants and leaves doesn't work so well with people. Take a look at

these George Washington-looking fellows on the right. He has a strong interest in flags and bold shapes

and flat colors. They're easier to paint, and they seem to make more sense to him than people. He claims

to have invented the portrait landscape with this painting. That is a bold claim, especially for a

genre that's been around for centuries. Has he seen the Mona Lisa? Sorry Henri, but no, you did not invent

the portrait landscape. There are some fascinating things happening in this picture, though, especially

in the sky and clouds. Look at that sun. Wow. It's a perfectly bright sunny day, yet that sun is setting

hard into that Japan-shaped cloud. A strange phenomenon indeed. Check out the river, though. The

sunset's reflection is just hitting it and nowhere else, and the water doesn't accurately reflect the sky he's

painted. Also, have a look at the small couple strolling on the sidewalk. If they are there,

then that makes Henri about 100 feet tall in this painting. Look at his feet, too. Is he on his tiptoes?

Is he levitating? Such fascinating technical problems for an artist with such an obviously gifted eye for

so many other shapes and colors and spaces. But he keeps trying. It's almost hard to believe this painting

here is done by the same guy as the jungle scenes. This is an incredibly awkward attempt at a family

portrait. There's more copy and pasting going on. He was a fan of the pantograph, which is a mechanical

arm that can connect to your hand or pen so that as you drew in one place, an exact copy would be traced

out by the arm in another. I think the baby might give me nightmares. She doesn't look safe either. But at

least he did a nice job on the grass and the trees. It's interesting. It's very telling because he seems

to have spent more time and care on the grass than any of his family here. The biggest and most exciting

painting he makes in this decade-long painting school he's putting himself through is this painting

called War. After retiring from the tollbooth the year prior, Henri is finally able to dedicate all his

focus to his focus to a painting, and the result is stunning. There's an intense intersection of deep black

angles, the horse poised like a speeding bullet over the field of dead bodies. A closer look reveals a handful of

crows pecking out the eyes of the dead, the trees breaking and succumbing to the destructive moment. There's some

curious and unexpected parts too, like the beautiful pink clouds and soft blue sky that add a softer edge to this intense

scene. And notice the way the smoke from her torch matches her hair, which sits on top of her head

like a boa, as well as the horse's tail. What's particularly odd, though, is how the rider is not

even sitting on the horse. She's hovering in front of it. Was this done on purpose, or was it a legitimate

mistake? Regardless, the painting was a hit with critics and other artists, and by now Rousseau is

significantly raising his public profile too. But paintings like War also raise more questions

about Rousseau's intent as an artist, because by now he's had years of practice and exposure to fine art,

and of critics pointing out the technical flaws in his work. Yet he almost seems to up the ante with

head-scratchers like this portrait that looks like a printed wood cutout in the sand. Is this a giant baby?

A middle-aged man stuck in a toddler's body? I have no idea. It's a delightful painting, don't get me wrong,

but sometimes it really seems like he forgets how to paint. He doesn't seem to be making much progress in

showing a human in a natural pose. I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he was imitating this

naive style on purpose, but personally I don't see any evidence of him understanding it in the first

place. But breaking the rules was what the post-impressionists were all about, and it was easy

for Rousseau because he didn't learn the rules in the first place. Tragically, Rousseau's young wife

passed away in 1888, and 10 years after that he would marry Josephine Nouri, who was also a widow.

Rousseau decides to commemorate their wedding with a painting called The Past and the Present,

a wedding portrait with their tiny little hands holding a tiny little bouquet. And who are those

heads floating over them? Their parents? Their younger selves? That might make sense. But no,

it's their deceased spouses. Wow, I didn't expect that. This raises all kinds of questions to me,

but I'm not sure if it's the kind Rousseau had in mind. It's truly a bizarre, charming,

and intriguing painting. For whatever reason, at this stage of his life, he finally returns to

painting the jungle. Rousseau had long told the story that the inspiration came from seeing the

jungles of Mexico while he was in the army as a young man. There had indeed been a French expedition

to Mexico in the 1860s, so that was where he said he casually encountered many of the fantastical scenes

that he's now painting. The problem is, the evidence suggests that the furthest his army service took him

was Angers, about an hour away from his hometown. He quite possibly did hear stories, though, from the

returning soldiers. And he did visit the botanical gardens and the zoo, which like everything in 19th

century Paris, were being transformed into big spectacles. The first monkey, tiger, giraffe,

and hippo exhibits opened in the mid-1800s. And French botanists and colonists were grabbing all

the exotic plants they could find on their voyages to be shipped back to the capital.

So Rousseau's jungles were not from memory, but a conflation of what he saw in Paris and a book he

had of photographs of animals. What's interesting to me is that he felt the need to lie about having

seen the jungle. Why didn't he just say he made them up? Perhaps like his grandiose nickname,

la douaniere, it was to cultivate a bit of a mystique about his past. Or perhaps he felt self-conscious

that he wasn't painting plein air like his colleagues, and insecure that he didn't have first-hand

credibility with his subject matter. If you look closely at his jungle paintings, you'll start to

notice some strange things. He doesn't know what kind of plants and trees are in the jungle, but he does

know that there are a lot and they're really big. So he just paints the plants he's familiar with and makes

them huge. Here's a perfect example. This cracks me up. The forest is actually a few insanely large

orange trees and some 15-foot tall garden flowers. I mean, look at the size of those oranges. They are

bigger than her head. At least watermelon size. I suppose he was hoping no one would notice and they

would just go with it. Yeah, Henri, that's totally an exotic forest. Rousseau's greatest talent was for

painting leaves, grass, branches, and trees. When you're looking at that level, you can see expertly

blended highlights and shadows and so many types of greens. This can be more difficult than it looks.

When you're mixing up paint and using a lot of one color, it's easy for things to get lost and bunched

up and flat looking. But over the years, Rousseau has developed an intricate system of layering.

He often starts with a very loose and lighter green base for the foliage. He covers up the sky

color with this base green, ensuring that the jungle will look thick and impervious. Then with each layer,

he paints a little bit darker with a bit more contrast and a bit more detail, bringing the trees

forward in space with each step. All the while, each plant seems to be a slightly different temperature of

green. This one here, a bit bluer and cooler. This one here, slightly yellower and warmer.

But for all that detail, there's very little foreshortening or angling of the leaves. It's like

he's flat in the jungle between the pages of a book. This one is fun because it features epic

banana bunches that are the size of a lion. And at first glance, there appears to also be a pile of

white bananas. But alas, it's a flowering plant. Notice the peculiar way it's cropped behind this leaf

here. Another bonus is the bright shock of red blood with the cheetah's head casually inside the lion's

mouth. The sun in this painting is probably the most realistic in terms of the sense of light and how it

appears to glow, even though it's a bit oblong. When I look at it, I'm fooled for a moment that I should

look away before it hurts my eyes. I think it's an excellent illusion. Rousseau's jungle cats love

breaking the fourth wall to make eye contact with the viewer. Whether this was to create some more

drama or tension, I'm not sure. But it makes me laugh. Every time one of Rousseau's wide-eyed tigers

or lions looks at me directly in the eye, they aren't very scary looking. He's gotten pretty good at

modeling his lights and shadow. Modeling is basically when you make up volume by adding a light on one

side and a shadow on the other. It's one of the simpler techniques to achieve this, but depending on

how well you do it, it can be convincing. That's Rousseau's secret weapon. The highlights never look

like they're coming from the light source. They're arbitrarily on one side of each leaf. In this

painting, while it's not as convincing as the one we just saw, this probably wins for my favorite sun.

A big, heavy, deep orange ball just hovering slightly above the jungle, repeating the color

in the cactus flowers. There's something beautifully foreboding about it. But this time, we also see a

more problematic element of the exotic that Rousseau uses in his art. This central figure here, rendered

completely in black, is reduced to a silhouette or merely a shadow. He's just a prop for the action

of the leopard attack. This scene would have played into the French chauvinism of the time about faraway

places where primitive men get savagely eaten by wild beasts. Underscoring a lot of this is the theme

that these are wild and uncivilized areas, and aren't they lucky to have Europeans come and take over?

It's not a particularly easy or fun aspect of these works, but it's important to be aware of. Art is

always a mirror of its time, and while the post-impressionists captured the beauty and excitement

of late 19th century, they also reflected and even reinforced some of its ugly underbelly.

But you see in this work, too, that his artistic skills are sharpening. Look at the yellow trim grass in

the bottom right corner, and the rest of the grass along the bottom. His sense of light and shadow is

getting stronger. Look at the subtle gradation of the yellow into the orange, creating a nice warm glow.

Beautiful. Another cultural touchstone he's borrowing from, whether intentionally or imaginatively,

are the aesthetics of the arts and crafts movement, an English design movement which was very popular in

this period. Rousseau would have been familiar with wallpaper from its leading proponent William

Morris, which featured ornate and intricate patterns of leaves and flowers and fruit, expertly drawn,

well-defined and well-spaced out, perfectly layered to create harmonious balance and rich design.

His forest scenes show this influence as well, as he gives a similar focused approach to the forest

greenery as he does in his jungles to create detailed and intricate scenes. This one is hiding a couple

that we see like voyeurs, a nice burst of color and shapes to contrast the rest of the composition.

Looks like a military captain still wearing his tri-corner hat and his lover in embrace.

Throughout this later period, he still continues to paint portraits as well. My favorite portrait is so

surreal it could have easily been painted in the 1970s. Yes, the young child does have a grandfather's face.

The red dress is the star of the show, I think, but look how she's sitting on this polka dot landscape,

an absolute giant. And then, as we follow her legs down, it would be impossible to bend sitting in that

position. So where would they go? Well, for Rousseau, he buries them straight into the ground as if she's

breaking through a portal to another reality. The most ambitious and grandest painting of his career

was also the final painting he exhibited, called The Dream. After all these decades, it seems that he's

finally embraced the fiction of his paintings and includes a sofa in what may be the first and only

intentional surrealist element. Now, there are many surreal aspects to his paintings, but this one was

absolutely intentional, and he let everyone know he only put it there for the use of that particular

color red. There are many hidden gems throughout the painting. There's a figure in the orange skirt

emerging from the background playing some kind of flute. There are flowers, fruit, and a bunch of

animals—a snake, an elephant, a bird, monkeys. My favorite aspect about this painting has to be

right under the lion's goofy-looking eyes. These two green plants, one with dark veins. This looks

remarkably photorealistic if he was painting some fake painted plants made out of wood. There's

something uncanny about the meticulous way he paints the light in this scene, as the whole bottom of the

painting has this flat yet three-dimensional dynamic. It's beautiful and fascinating.

He died from gangrene in his leg, which sounds like a painful end. Sadly, he did not have many friends,

family, or loved ones by the time he passed. He was poor, and his friends were forced to sell some of

his paintings to cover the funeral costs. His career left a wide range of responses, from passionate

adoration to mocking dismissal. But he did have some notable admirers. One of his biggest fans was Picasso,

who acquired many of his works, and he famously threw a party in Rousseau's honor where he put a big

cardboard medal around his neck, but forgot to schedule the catering for the right day. Rousseau was

often the butt of the joke, too. Even Picasso's party was probably at least partially in jest. But Rousseau

genuinely believed in his ability as a painter, and he left the world with a unique vision that will

continue to inspire. So what do you think? Was he painting naively as a stylistic choice?

I'm going to say no. I've taught painting one classes for 15 years and see the way students can

obsessively focus on one aspect of a painting, while having a total blind spot for another aspect.

His work resembles the way my students paint before they learn proportions or perspective. Once one of

these technical flaws are pointed out to them, students usually do one of two things. Focus on that weakness

and improve it until they're comfortable with it, or sadly, they avoid painting those things or give

up on painting altogether. There is a third option, though. A few artists embrace their shortcomings and

celebrate them, painting the awkward things over and over. They develop a love for them and begin to own

them as part of their idiosyncratic style. So perhaps he didn't know how to paint accurate proportions or

perspective. What I think is great about his work is that he didn't care. He painted the best he could,

focusing on what he wanted to. And in today's parlance, he was just blocking out the haters.

You really have to admire that. His ability to stay focused and believe in himself brought one of the

most fascinating and unique painting styles we have seen. And that's probably why the Post-Impressionists

took him into their circle. Intellectually and stylistically, he's not really part of any

particular movement of the time. And in terms of style and subject, his connection to Post-Impressionism

is tenuous. But the Post-Impressionists were nothing if not committed to breaking down the rules and

frontiers of art. And the fact that a middle-aged, totally unschooled toll collector from Laval could have

his works exhibited in a salon was definitely the kind of revolution they wanted to encourage.