Fight Between a Tiger and a Buffalo1908
Having never ventured outside France, Henri Rousseau derived his jungle scenes from reading travel books and visiting the Paris botanical garden. More about this work
About this work
Having never ventured outside France, Henri Rousseau derived his jungle scenes from reading travel books and visiting the Paris botanical garden. He placed this imaginary scene of a tiger attacking a buffalo within a fantastic jungle environment in which botanical accuracy was of little importance (note the bananas growing upside down). Here, sharply outlined hothouse plants are enlarged to fearsome proportions. Rousseau was working on this painting while imprisoned for fraud in December 1907. Officials granted him an early release to finish it for exhibition at the Salon des Indépendants, where this major composition, one of the artist's largest and most important, appeared in March 1908. A self-taught artist and retired customs inspector, Rousseau was admired by Pablo Picasso and other avant-garde artists for his originality and the naïve purity of his vision.
Text from the Cleveland Museum of Art.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
Henri Rousseau
French, 1844–1910 · Born in Laval; died in Paris.
Rousseau worked for years as a clerk in the Paris toll service, which earned him the nickname “le Douanier”, and taught himself to paint, exhibiting from 1886 at the jury-free Salon des Indépendants. Critics mocked his flat, meticulous style, but younger artists, Picasso among them, came to admire it. He is best known for his dense jungle scenes with wild animals, composed from visits to the Paris botanical garden and zoo and from illustrated books, without his ever leaving France.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Cleveland Museum of Art has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1949.186
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
- Type
- Painting
- Department
- Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
