Artists

Theodore Rousseau

French, 1812-1867

Theodore Rousseau was born on April 15, 1812. His parents, who recognized their son's interest in nature and art and did their best to encourage it, were part of the rising successful merchant class. At the age of 13 he was sent to the country, in the Franche-Comte, where he sketched his surroundings at every opportunity. On his return to Paris the following year, Rousseau began studying in earnest, primarily at the studio of Jean Charles Joseph Remond. Even at this early age, Rousseau made frequent excursions in and around Paris. Like many Barbizon artists, Rousseau spent a great deal of time in the Louvre copying the Dutch 17th century landscape artists and traveled to Fontainebleau.

In 1831, he exhibited his first painting at the Salon, a landscape from his recent trip to the Auvergne. Rousseau spent the next year on the Normandy Coast with several other artists, including Paul Huet, the predominant landscape artist of the time. Huet exerted a strong influence on Rousseau, and encouraged his young pupil to draw directly from nature. In 1833, Rousseau received his first real public recognition through the purchase of a picture at the Salon by the Duc d'Orleans. Rousseau's greatest involvement with the Salon occurred between the years of 1834 and 1836.  In 1834 he won a third-class medal, and in 1835 two of Rousseau's sketches were purchased by the Prince de Joinville. Throughout the rest of the decade and into the 1840s, he spent a great deal of time traveling in the French countryside and an increasing part of this time at Barbizon, often with his closest friend, Jules Dupre. During this time, Rousseau exhibited frequently at the Salon des Refuses, becoming a well-known but controversial landscape painter. Rousseau established a permanent studio at Barbizon in 1848. In June of the following year he met Millet, who had also moved to Barbizon; this would mark the beginning of their lasting friendship.

In 1867, at perhaps the height of his popularity and with the favor of Napoleon III, Rousseau became the head of an international jury at the Universal Exhibition. In the same year, a major exhibition of his work was held, but by this time Rousseau's health was deteriorating rapidly and Millet cared for him until his death on December 22, 1867.

Museum Collections Include:
Museum of Amsterdam, Netherlands; Bayonne Museum, France; Beaufort Museum; Beziers Museum, France; Boston Museum, MA; Museum of Brussels, Belgium; Chantilly Museum, France; Museum of Copenhagen, Denmark; Detroit Museum, Michigan; Museum of Dijon, France; Glasgow Museum, Scotland; Gratz Museum; Le Havre Museum, France; Lille Museum, France; Wallace Museum, London; Museum of Montpellier, France; Tretiakoff Museum, Russia; Nantes Museum, France; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Nice, France; Louvre, Paris; Vire Museum, France