Among the very last compositions Henri Rousseau painted, The Waterfall is typical of the large-scale jungle scenes for which he gained renown in the 20th century. A self-taught artist who worked by day as a customs agent until the age of 49, Rousseau never set foot outside of France. Instead, he learned about the flora and fauna of far-away places through visits to Paris botanical gardens and zoos as well as in popular books. As a result, his landscapes often reflect how Parisians at the time imagined France’s colonial empires in Africa and the Americas. Here, he created a secluded vignette of two dark-skinned figures and a pair of deer at a stream surrounded by dense foliage. As we look upon them, seemingly undetected or just noticed by the deer, we encounter a fictional scene that reflects 20th-century European ideas about escaping modernity and returning to more peaceful origins.

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   Henri Rousseau was a self-taught artist who worked as a customs agent on the outskirts of Paris. His visionary paintings—in particular, those on the theme of the jungle—captivated the art world with their representations of lush plant and animal life painted with incredible detail and precision. Rousseau made “The Waterfall” in the last year of his life, and it may have been left unfinished: a few leaves on the branches of the tree in the left foreground lack some of the artist’s characteristic overlapping layers of color. Though Rousseau depicted exotic, distant locales, he never set foot outside France. His imaginary scenes were informed by visits to the Paris zoo and botanical gardens, and images from postcards, photographs, and illustrated journals.

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