Henri Rousseau was a toll collector for the city of Paris. This job allowed him to support his wife and nine children and gave him time to pursue his true passion—art. From his post at the toll gates and in strolls through the suburbs of Paris, Rousseau observed the world and filled numerous notebooks with sketches from nature. He also explored the Jardin des Plantes, a botanical garden and zoo in Paris. There, he studied and drew exotic plants and animals. He retired at age forty-nine to become a full-time artist.

In the last months before his death, Rousseau painted Tropical Forest with Monkeys. In this work, exotic animals are surrounded by lush plants that look like a jungle. Upon closer inspection, however, we see that the foliage is not a realistic representation of tropical vegetation. Instead, Rousseau took specimens from the Jardin des Plantes as a point of departure, vastly enlarging and changing them to create his jungle. The trees, for example, are magnified ferns. The yellow-orange lotuses rise high above the water; in reality, they should float on the surface.

The animals in the painting are also a mix of reality and imagination. A brown macaque, a kind of monkey, sits on a rock in a stream with a green bamboolike pole under his legs. To its right a row of lotus flowers leads back to two orange gibbon monkeys swinging through the trees. Rousseau added tails to these normally tailless animals. A black and white langur monkey sits on a branch, scratching his head and fishing with a pole. Another black monkey of indeterminate species sits on a branch peering at an enormous snake that slithers among the lotuses, perhaps posing a danger to the monkeys.

The monkeys depicted here inhabit various parts of Asia and Africa and could only come together in a book, zoo, or artist’s imagination. Found in Rousseau’s studio at the time of his death was an illustrated book of exotic animals called Wild Beasts: Approximately 200 Amusing Illustrations Drawn from the Life of Animals, with an Instructive Text. All five primates in the painting were inspired by photographs in this book.

Discussion Questions:

• While the other paintings in this lesson record actual locations, this is an imaginary place. Rousseau went to botanical gardens and zoos, studied exotic plants and animals, used illustrations in books and his drawings, and used his imagination as inspiration for Tropical Forest with Monkeys. Does anything look imaginary or strange to you?
• Despite Rousseau’s poetic license, his painting can still inform us about the kinds of animals and plants in a tropical forest. What does the painting tell you? What other information do you know about a tropical climate that isn’t illustrated in the painting?
• Look at the world map. Where, generally, are rain forests found? (Near the equator.) What is it about that area’s position and climate that would support a rain forest ecosystem? (More exposure to the sun all year, heavy rains every day, hot and humid air.)
• About twenty-five percent of all the medicines used today start from somewhere in the rain forest. Do you know any other natural resources that can be found in a rain forest? (Rubber, chocolate, nuts and fruits, bamboo, coffee, gum, waxes, and lubricants.)
• Tropical forests are disappearing faster than any other ecosystem. This year alone, an area about the size of the state of Florida will disappear. Why or how do you think they are being destroyed? What happens when we destroy or pollute these areas? (Lose habitat, rivers dry up changing the geography, runoff from cutting pollutes rivers and kills aquatic life, etc.) What are ways to protect rain forests?