The Past and the Present

In 1899 Henri Rousseau married for the second time, to Josephine Noury, a widow. He was a widower himself, and 55, though he painted himself here looking much younger. The couple stand in a garden scattered with forget-me-nots, and he hands her a small bouquet. Above their heads two faces drift in the clouds: their dead first spouses, brought back to bless the new marriage. Rousseau called pictures like this portrait-landscapes, his own word for setting people among plants both real and invented. He was still working as a toll collector and painting on his days off, taken seriously by almost no one. The full title he gave it was The Past and the Present, or Philosophical Thought.