Henri Rousseau (ahn REE roo SOH) was born in
northwest France in
the city of Laval. He liked to draw, and he enjoyed music. He played
the clarinet. Once he wrote a waltz and named it for his wife, but
don't confuse him with Jean Jacques Rousseau, the composer.
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He served for a time in the French army, and when he
was discharged he
worked as a toll collector for the city of Paris. His friends called
him Le Douanier
(luh dwan YAY) which means custom official, but actually he just
collected toll money. When he was 49 years old he retired from this job
and devoted the rest of his life to painting.
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He was a primitive artist; self taught. He would go
to the Louvre
and copy the paintings. Even when he started making his own paintings
he sometimes copied from other artists such as Delacroix's tiger when he painted Scout
Attacked by a Tiger .
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He enjoyed going to the botanical garden in Paris and
looking at the
plants and the zoo animals. Then he would make a painting with plants
in it, but instead of making the plants their actual size, he would
make them as big as trees. This made the picture look like a fantasy
world. Many people just laughed at his paintings because they looked so
unreal.
However, some well known artists such as Picasso saw the value in his
work. Picasso even gave a banquet in his honor.
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Rousseau was married twice. With his first wife
Clemence, he had nine
children, but she died and so did seven of their children. His second
wife also died after they had been married for four years.
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Another famous painting done by Rousseau is The Sleeping Gypsy.
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As a rather lonely man, he died at the age of 66 from
a leg
infection. Only seven people attended his funeral. About a year after
his death his paintings began to sell, but he didn't live to see the
recognition he craved.
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