Woman Walking in an Exotic Forest, 1905 by Henri Rousseau

Woman Walking in an Exotic Forest, 1905 by Henri Rousseau
Woman Walking in an Exotic Forest, 1905 by Henri Rousseau

When asked where he learned so much about the jungle, Rousseau commented on his army years spent in Mexico; however, art historians agree that this was a fabrication. Garden plants and tropical vegetation combine in monstrous or eerily miniscule forms, sometimes overwhelming the unlikely characters around them. To the right, dressed as a woman of the times, the figure stands amid a stage-like jungle surrounded by overgrown houseplants and dwarfed by trees which grow oranges bigger than her head. Combining the extravagant and the miniscule is a major point of Magical Realist art.