Self-Portrait

1895 · Drawing

Particulars

1886–1893
Twenty paintings in seven years: ridicule and friends
Over the next seven years Rousseau, dividing his time between work, family and painting, showed about twenty pictures at the Salon des Indépendants; the public barely noticed them and critics kept mocking them, but his friends, the Impressionist painters, supported him, valuing his spontaneity and sincerity.
1893
Retires from the civil service to paint
In 1893, at the age of 49, Rousseau retired from the civil service on a modest pension to devote himself entirely to painting.
after 1893
Meets Alfred Jarry
Soon after leaving his post Rousseau met the talented young poet Alfred Jarry, who was struck by the oddity of his work and introduced him to the circle of intellectuals around the avant-garde journal Mercure de France, in whose pages a favourable review of his art appeared.
1893–1910
A studio in Montparnasse
In 1893 Rousseau moved to a studio in Montparnasse, where he lived and worked until his death in 1910.
1894
“War” at the Salon des Indépendants
“War,” shown at the 1894 Salon des Indépendants, began Rousseau’s wider fame: the picture earned praise in Mercure de France, and its powerful allegorical message convinced many connoisseurs that he was no ordinary landscape painter.