La selva ecuatorial

Henri Rousseau painted dense tropical jungles for the last years of his life, and he never once left France to see one. This one dates from 1909, the year before he died. His rainforest was assembled at home in Paris, out of the hothouses and the botanical garden, the Jardin des Plantes, out of illustrated magazines, out of the stuffed animals in the natural history museum. He was a self-taught former customs officer, laughed at by many critics for his flat, careful, dreamlike manner, though younger artists like Picasso saw something real in it. Look into the green and it is not quite botany. The leaves are stacked in patient overlapping layers, oversized and strange, a forest built plant by plant by a man who imagined it more than he ever observed it.