Rousseau, Henri

Byname �Le Douanier (French: The Customs Officer) � French painter, archetype of the modern naive artist. He expressed himself mainly in richly coloured and meticulously detailed pictures of lush jungles, wild beasts, and exotic figures (e.g., �The Sleeping Gypsy,� 1897, and �The Snake-Charmer,� 1907 [see photograph]). After exhibiting with the Fauves in 1905, he became an object of admiration to avant-garde