Théodore Rousseau

French Painter & Naturalist

1812-1867

Pierre Étienne Théodore Rousseau, to give the great French landscape painter his full baptismal name, was one of the greatest painters of nature the world has ever seen, a man who was not only a master in pigment, but one who knew the anatomy of the earth in a truly scientific way.  He had made the most profound studies out of doors: there was not a tree Rousseau did not know by heart, not a growth unfamiliar to him.

The only child of a prosperous merchant tailor, he was born in Paris.  There was never any doubt as to his future career, and at the age of 12.  His father sent him to study with  Remond, a fairly well-known painter.  At 19, Rousseau had a picture in the exhibition of the Royal Salon in the Louvre, and when he arrived at man's estate, a picture of his so attracted the critics in the exhibition that he was pronounced one of the coming men. Then he became a more or less revolutionary, changed his style of painting, and was in great disfavor with the classicists.

When they refused his Salon picture of 1836, he left Paris for Fontainebleau, and joined the Barbizon group.  But he suffered none of the disappointments of the rest of his friends.  His landscapes offered fresh and unique images of rural France, showing his substantial talent as a colorist and interpreter. After a few years, not only did he sell his work, but honors piled up on him thick and fast.  In the year of his death, 1867, he was awarded a medal of honor at the Universal Exposition,

In describing his method of painting, "It seems to you that I am only caressing my picture, does it not?  When I have exhausted the resources of the colors I use a scraper, my thumbs, a piece of cuttlebone, and even my brush handles.  They are hard trials, these last moments of the day's work, and I often come out of them worn, but never discouraged."

He is best represented in the Metropolitan Museum and in the Louvre.

A more detailed biography can be found at Rousseau - Rehs Gallery