The "Rousseau – Paris: Tropical Forest" special exhibition (Le Douanier Rousseau: Jungles in Paris) was held at the Grand Palais National Gallery from March 15 to June 19, 2006. It was not a retrospective; centered on his most striking and imaginative "Tropical Forest" theme, it featured over 50 oil paintings and some sketches, accompanied by extensive textual and visual materials to delve deeper into Rousseau's poetic and picturesque exoticism, making it the most captivating exhibition in Paris for the first half of the year.
Rousseau (D. Rousseau, 1844–1910) was a self-taught painter and the world's most renowned outsider artist, active during the Impressionist era in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He participated in the Salon des Indépendants starting in 1886 and exhibited at the 1889 Exposition Universelle. Through his extraordinary imagination and ability to construct poetic compositions, he created unique tropical landscapes filled with exotic charm (despite never leaving Paris). His art possesses a pure, naive, and primitive style, imbued with exoticism, fantasy, and poetry.
