Der Schlagbaum

For years Rousseau earned his living at the octroi, the ring of toll posts where the city of Paris taxed food and goods coming in through its gates. That job gave him his nickname, Le Douanier, the customs man, and this small picture, barely a foot wide, is the one time he painted the world he actually worked in. Two little figures stand near a toll house among trees and low buildings. Even here, in a real place he knew, he cannot help inventing, and the greenery is his own bright, flat green, quietly creeping up over the walls of the houses.