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Artist: Théodore Rousseau (French, 1871-1958)
French painter. Born in Paris, began painting at age 14. Early influence by English contemporaries such as Richard Parkes Bonington and John Constable led to landscape paintings portraying nature as wild and mysterious. Began exhibiting at the French Salon in 1831 but a series of his paintings were rejected by the jury. Settled in Barbizon in the mid 1800s and worked with several landscape painters, including Jean-Francois Millet and Jules Dupre. The group became known as the Barbizon school. When the Salon revised its standards after the Revolution of 1848, Rousseau was formaly recognized as a key figure in French landscape painting and went on to represent France at the Universal Exposition of 1855. Became president of the fine-arts jury for the Universal Exposition of 1867. Known for highly textured brushstrokes characteristic of the Impressionists to come.