Henri Rousseau

Henri Rousseau was a French painter famous for his lush jungle scenes, painted by a man who never left France. Born in 1844, he worked for years as a customs officer, which earned him the nickname Le Douanier, and he took up painting seriously only in middle age. Self-taught and untrained, he painted in a flat, dreamlike style that trained critics first mocked as naive.

His imaginary jungles, full of wide-eyed animals, giant leaves, and hidden figures, were built from visits to Paris gardens, picture books, and his own vivid imagination. Younger avant-garde artists like Picasso saw genius in his fresh, direct vision and championed him. Rousseau died in 1910, and his strange, magical scenes are now loved as masterpieces of self-taught art.