Henri Rousseau is a famous self-taught French Post-Impressionist painter in the Naive and Primitive style. Rousseau paintings are often remembered for his use of jungles and monkeys, but we include a wide range of Rousseau paintings here. Famous Rousseau paintings include The Sleeping Gypsy, The Merry Jesters & The Snake Charmer. Henri Rousseau's art is believed to have inspired the likes of Fernand Léger, Max Beckmann & Jean Hugo. Although a self taught painter, Rousseau always seeked critical approval, but rarely found it in his lifetime for his paintings. We did mix with other famous artists such as Pablo PIcasso & Delaneys but few looked beyond the unusually childlike nature of his style. Rousseau paintings are now well respected and enjoyed, and you can see some of the best ones below.

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His best known paintings depict jungle scenes, even though he never left France or saw a jungle. Stories spread by admirers that his army service included the French expeditionary force to Mexico are unfounded. His inspiration came from illustrated books and the botanical gardens in Paris, as well as tableaux of taxidermied wild animals. He had also met soldiers, during his term of service, who had survived the French expedition to Mexico and listened to their stories of the subtropical country they had encountered. To the critic Arsène Alexandre, he described his frequent visits to the Jardin des Plantes: "When I go into the glass houses and I see the strange plants of exotic lands, it seems to me that I enter into a dream."

Many of the most famous Rousseau paintings are available on this website to buy as reproductions. The bright bold colors and clear shapes and characters of Henri Rousseau paintings make them ideal for most contemporary homes, and can really improve your lounge or bedroom.

Along with his exotic scenes there was a concurrent output of smaller topographical images of the city and its suburbs. He claimed to have invented a new genre of portrait landscape, which he achieved by starting a painting with a view such as a favorite part of the city, and then depicting a person in the foreground.