Tropical Landscape - An American Indian Struggling with a Gorilla

Today we continue our special month with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts collection. Who doesn't love Rousseau?  : )  He has such an amazing imagination! You must know that he never was in a real jungle. The closest he got was the zoo in Paris.

This landscape was entirely invented by the self-taught artist, known as Le Douanier (customs official). Rousseau created dreamlike scenes where imagination dictated his compositions rather than traditional notions of form, perspective, or scale. He studied exotic plants and animals in Paris’s botanical gardens and zoos, though he never traveled outside of France. Romantic views of the American West promoted by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show that toured France and the paintings of George Catlin, which are also in the Mellon collection, informed his images of Native Americans.

P.S. Here are more of Rousseau's jungles that always amaze me! <3