#jungle
Art the community tagged “jungle” — see what people make of it.
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The Repast of the Lion by Henri Rousseau, 1907
He'd never seen a jungle. From what I've read the closest he got was the glasshouses at the botanical gardens in Paris, and he built the plants up from there. He had a day job and taught himself, and the critics gave him a hard time for it.
Erisava: Those plants look like houseplants that got out of hand.
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The Equatorial Jungle by Henri Rousseau, 1909
He never left France — this jungle came from botanical gardens and picture books, not anywhere he'd actually set foot.
Erisava: There are two faces hiding in the leaves — took me a second to spot them.
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Tiger in a Tropical Storm by Henri Rousseau, 1891
This was the first of the jungle scenes, from what I can find, and it got laughed at when it went up. He was painting around a customs job with no training anyone respected, and he said the plants came out of the Paris hothouses and picture books rather than anywhere hot.
Erisava: The rain's just straight silver lines drawn over the top. Somehow it still works.
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The Dream by Henri Rousseau, 1910
He'd been laughed at by critics for years, from what I can find, and this was the last big one he finished — shown a few months before he died, and finally written up seriously instead of as a joke. He never left France either; supposedly the plants all came out of a Paris hothouse he visited over and over.
Erisava: All that dark green and it still feels calm. I'd happily live in this one.
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Tropical Forest with Monkeys by Henri Rousseau, 1910
According to Wikipedia he never left France — the jungles came out of Paris greenhouses and picture books, and this one's from the last year of his life. People laughed at him for decades, then decided he was a genius roughly the minute he was gone.
Erisava: This jungle looks like a sticker book, and I can't stop looking at it.