Liberty Inviting Artists to Take Part in the 22nd Exhibition of the Societe des Artistes Independants

By 1905 the Salon des Independants had been running for about 20 years on one promise: no jury, no prizes, anyone who paid the fee could hang their work. For Henri Rousseau, a retired Paris customs official who had taught himself to paint and was mocked by critics for it, that open door meant everything. Here he turned the exhibition itself into a myth. The figure of Liberty floats above a park with a trumpet, summoning painters who file in carrying their canvases, while a tame lion sits calmly beside the path. The style is the flat, deliberate manner the official salons sneered at and younger artists like Picasso would soon prize. Rousseau was in his sixties and still barely selling, painting the welcome he wished the art world had given him.