Written by DCist contributor Menachem Wecker.
The city’s going to get a little bit wild this Sunday when the National Gallery of Art opens Jungles of Paris, Henri Rousseau’s first retrospective in twenty years.
But even if you haven’t seen his work recently in exhibitions, Rousseau is everywhere. You can find references to his work in many children’s book illustrations, like Henry Hikes to Fitchburg or Madeline, in a Joni Mitchell song, and even in video games, like Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong Country. Rousseau, with a little help from artists such as Pieter Bruegel the Elder, invented the naïve/primitive art style–art made by untrained artists–and was, therefore, often blind to basic rules of composition and perspective.
Born in Laval, France, in 1844, Rousseau was one of the few artists of his period who held an honest day job. He worked for the Paris Customs Service, until retiring early to paint with “no teacher other than nature.” Roger Shattuck’s The Banquet Years, which follows the origins of avant-garde in France, describes Rousseau as “One of the most provoking of all modern legends.”
