French 1844-1910 Henri Rousseau Locations He was born in Laval in the Loire Valley into the family of a plumber. He attended Laval High School as a day student and then as a boarder, after his father became a debtor and his parents had to leave the town upon the seizure of their house. He was mediocre in some subjects at the high school but won prizes for drawing and music. He worked for a lawyer and studied law, but "attempted a small perjury and sought refuge in the army," serving for four years, starting in 1863. With his father's death, Rousseau moved to Paris in 1868 to support his widowed mother as a government employee. In 1871, he was promoted to the toll collector's office in Paris as a tax collector. He started painting seriously in his early forties, and by age 49 he retired from his job to work on his art. His wife died in 1888 and he later remarried. Rousseau claimed he had "no teacher other than nature", although he admitted he had received "some advice" from two established Academic painters, Felix Auguste-Clement and Jean-Leon Gerome. Essentially he was self-taught and is considered to be a naive or primitive painter.  Related Paintings of Henri Rousseau :. | The Artillerists(Fourth Battery,Third Piece) | The Muse Inspiring the Poet | Beauty and the Beast | The French Republic | The Customs Post |
Related Artists:
Giovanni Battista Paggi
Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1554-1627 Italian painter and theorist. As the son of a newly inscribed nobleman, he received a Renaissance gentleman's education, but as an artist he was it seems self-taught, despite the encouragement of Luca Cambiaso. The gentleman who then set up as a painter was obliged to give his work to patrons, sometimes expecting future remuneration; but when one patron reneged on payment in 1581, Paggi mortally wounded him and was banished from Genoa. He was given protection by Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and settled in Florence. A fresco of St Catherine Converting Two Criminals (1582), painted for Niccol? Gaddi's family chapel at S Maria Novella and thoroughly Florentine in manner, established Paggi's reputation at the Medici court. He painted ephemeral decorations, portraits (all untraced) and altarpieces for many Florentine churches and for the cathedrals of San Gimignano (c. 1590), Pistoia (1591-3) and Lucca (1597-8), having his studio in a house owned by Federico Zuccaro.
Cornelis de Vos
1585-1651 Flemish Cornelis de Vos Gallery Flemish portrait and figure painter. He was a contemporary of Rubens, who sent many sitters to him. Although of the school of Rubens, Vos developed an individual style of portraiture in which cool grays predominate. His representations of children were particularly successful. An example of his many portraits is that of Abraham Grapheus (Antwerp). His brother, Paulus de Vos, c.1596?C1678, was an excellent painter of animals and hunting scenes. His paintings show the influence of his brother-in-law, Frans Snyders. His work is best seen in the museums of Madrid and St. Petersburg.
Helene Schjerfbeck
Finnish Painter, 1862-1946 .Finnish painter. In 1873 she began to study at the Finnish Art Society drawing school in Helsinki. On the death of her father in 1876, she was forced to seek help to finance her studies. In 1877 she went to the private academy of Adolf von Becker (1831-1909) in Helsinki, and her work was first shown in public in 1879. In the autumn of 1880 she went to Paris to study at the Academie Trelat de Vigne under Leon Bonnat and Jean-Leon Gereme and in 1881 moved to the Academie Colarossi, studying under Gustave Courtois ( fl 1852-1908) and Raphael Collin (1850-1916). In Brittany that summer, she painted a large oil, A Boy Feeding his Little Sister