Henri Rousseau – Outskirts of Paris

Outskirts of Paris, c. 1897–1905

The house beside the path

The left foreground is taken by a low pale house with a red tiled roof and two chimneys.
On the ground floor are three tall openings with orange-brown shutters, and a weathervane
stands on the ridge. To the right of the house a low wall continues and closes off the yard.
Behind the roof rises a large full green crown – the darkest and densest shape in the left
half of the picture, which both props the house up and ties it to the sky.

The path and two figures

A sandy path of a pale yellowish colour winds into the depth from the lower left corner.
Two small figures stand by the wall: one in a light straw hat and dark clothes, the other
dark throughout. They measure barely a few per cent of the height of the canvas, yet they
are placed exactly where the path turns – so the eye follows them into the distance without
being asked. Beside them stands a dark timber structure with cross-braced beams.

The water and the life ring

To the right of the path a wide pale plane of water opens with a softly curved bank. At
its edge, low and to the right, lies a red and white ring – a life ring, small and carefully
painted, which in an otherwise quiet landscape is the only warning sign in sight. Nearer the
centre a small white triangle rises that can be read as a sail. The water is not agitated;
it is painted as one even pale plane, without waves.

The right bank and the flag

At the right edge stands a tall pale building of several storeys with a dark roof, and
beside it a French tricolour hangs from a pole. Behind it slender poplars rise in a row,
with low red-roofed buildings visible between them. This is the suburb Rousseau knew from
daily life: a few houses, a few trees, water, and a single flag as the mark of a public
building.

A sky that takes half the canvas

The upper half belongs to the sky. A band of large grey-white cumulus with soft edges
spreads above the landscape, and below it the sky is a pale blue-green. The clouds are not
decoration: their weight makes the lower band of houses and trees read as a narrow strip,
which is common in Rousseau’s suburban views. A comparable river subject on our shelf is
The Banks of the Bièvre near Bicêtre.

The museum and the record

The original is held by the Cleveland Museum of Art under accession number 1929.951,
acquired through the J. H. Wade Fund. The museum dates it to about 1897-1905 and records
the technique as oil on fabric – not as oil on canvas. It also gives two measurements:
framed, 56.5 x 65.5 cm, and unframed, 37.8 x 45.8 cm. The painting itself is the unframed
figure, and that is the one printed here. Another Paris subject in our series is Jardin du Luxembourg, and
an evening suburban scene is A Carnival Evening.

How we make this canvas

We make the picture as a hand-painted oil on canvas reproduction, to order and in the
size you choose. The original is painted on fabric; our reproduction is made in oil on
artists’ canvas. Because the original is small, a larger size means that the tiny details –
the two figures by the wall, the ring at the water, the flag – are painted larger than they
are in the original, and it is exactly those that have to be kept precise. Because the work
is done by hand, every copy differs a little from the last. A portrait by the same painter
set outdoors is The Past and the Present. The full range by this painter is in the Henri Rousseau gallery.