Grade Level: 6-7
While the other paintings in these lessons record actual locations, Rousseau imagined Tropical Forest with Monkeys from trips to botanical gardens, zoos, and illustrations in books. Students will conduct research and imagine themselves in a place other than where they live. They also will investigate the macaque monkey to compare to Rousseau’s depictions.
Henri Rousseau
French, 1844–1910
Tropical Forest with Monkeys, 1910
oil on canvas, 129.5 x 162.5 cm (51 x 64 in.)
National Gallery of Art, John Hay Whitney Collection
Curriculum Connections
Materials
Warm-up Question
While the other paintings in these lessons record actual locations, this is an imaginary place. Rousseau went to botanical gardens and zoos, studied exotic plants and animals, used illustrations in books and his drawings, and used his imagination as inspiration for Tropical Forest with Monkeys. Does anything look imaginary or strange to you?
Background
Henri Rousseau was a toll collector for the city of Paris. This job allowed him to support his wife and nine children and gave him time to pursue his true passion—art. From his post at the tollgates and in strolls through the suburbs of Paris, Rousseau observed the world and filled numerous notebooks with sketches from nature. He also explored the Jardin des Plantes, a botanical garden and zoo in Paris. There, he studied and drew exotic plants and animals. He retired at age forty-nine to become a full-time artist.
In the last months before his death, Rousseau painted Tropical Forest with Monkeys. In this work, lush plants that look like a jungle surround exotic animals. Upon closer inspection, however, we see that the foliage is not a realistic representation of tropical vegetation. Instead, Rousseau took specimens from the Jardin des Plantes as a point of departure, vastly enlarging and changing them to create his jungle. The trees, for example, are magnified ferns. The yellow-orange lotuses rise high above the water; in reality, they should float on the surface.
The animals in the painting are also a mix of reality and imagination. A brown macaque, a kind of monkey, sits on a rock in a stream with a green bamboo like pole under his legs. To its right a row of lotus flowers leads back to two orange gibbon monkeys swinging through the trees. Rousseau added tails to these normally tailless animals. A black and white langur monkey sits on a branch, scratching his head and fishing with a pole. Another black monkey of indeterminate species sits on a branch peering at an enormous snake that slithers among the lotuses, perhaps posing a danger to the monkeys.
The monkeys depicted here inhabit various parts of Asia and Africa and could only come together in a book, zoo, or artist’s imagination. Found in Rousseau’s studio at the time of his death was an illustrated book of exotic animals called Wild Beasts: Approximately 200 Amusing Illustrations Drawn from the Life of Animals, with an Instructive Text. All five primates in the painting were inspired by photographs in this book.
Guided Practice
Activity
Rousseau imagined a world far away from his everyday life in Paris. To help students make personal connections to the lesson theme, ask them to think about a place other than their hometown where they would like to live. Have them research the place and write a report describing its geography, climate, and natural resources. How would their daily lives be different if they lived there? Is a part of the environment there in danger? How could they be good stewards to protect it?
To illustrate their findings, have students fold a large sheet of paper into four sections. In each section, students should draw or paint:
Extension
Using the reproduction of Henri Rousseau’s Tropical Forest with Monkeys as a starting point, have students research and write a report on the habitat, lifestyle, and eating habits of the macaque monkey. Ask students to compare their findings to the imaginative depiction of the monkey in Rousseau’s painting and include this comparison in their reports.
VA:Cn10.1.6 Generate a collection of ideas reflecting current interests and concerns that could be investigated in art-making.
VA:Cn11.1.7 Analyze how response to art is influenced by understanding the time and place in which it was created, the available resources, and cultural uses.
VA:Cr1.2.6 Formulate an artistic investigation of personally relevant content for creating art.
VA:Cr2.3.7 Apply visual organizational strategies to design and produce a work of art, design, or media that clearly communicates information or ideas.
VA:Re7.1.6 Identify and interpret works of art or design that reveal how people live around the world and what they value.
VA:Re8.1.6 Interpret art by distinguishing between relevant and non-relevant contextual information and analyzing subject matter, characteristics of form and structure, and use of media to identify ideas and mood conveyed.
Learn about rain forest ecosystems and geosystems through online videos, activities, and informative text at Passport to Knowledge
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Borrow the teaching packet Art&
Access activities, curriculum resources, and information that relate art, science, and the environment from the Environmental Protection Agency
View satellite images of environmental change and descriptions of issues affecting particular locations from the United States Geologic Survey site