Rousseau painted his famous series of jungle pictures late in life. From 1872 to 1893 he had worked as a customs officer in Paris and only started painting when he was forty. Throughout his career as a painter, Rousseau's subjects were almost exclusively the streets, bridges, and public squares of his beloved Paris. In the last ten years of his life, however, he produced his jungle pictures, which proved to be the greatest of his achievements.
Where does Rousseau rank among painters of the late 19th century? Was his work really naive? Were his jungle paintings merely decorative? How did he measure up in terms of the young painters who discovered him, especially Fernand Leger? This book answers these questions by going beyond a study of Henri Rousseau's life and work by placing them in a greater art historical context.
|
