Have a swingin’ birthday, Henri Rousseau! Rousseau was born #onthisday in 1844. 🐒 A low-level bureaucrat in the toll collector’s office of the Paris city government, Rousseau received no formal training as an artist. Frankly naive, richly imagined dreamscapes like this scene of humanoid monkeys at play earned him the affection of avant-garde artists and writers, including Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire, who nicknamed him “Le Douanier” (the Customs Officer). Rousseau referred to his jungle landscapes as “my Mexican pictures,” claiming they were inspired by his military service in Mexico. But in fact Le Douanier had most likely never left France. His compositions packed with exotic flora and fauna were based on a careful study of picture books and animals at the Paris zoo. __ Henri Rousseau (French, 1844–1910), Exotic Landscape, 1910, oil on canvas, The Norton Simon Foundation (fb)

What does your beach day look like? 🏖️ Boudin’s beach scenes provide a charming record of resort fashion through the decades. Here the wide crinolines of the 1860s and early 1870s have given way to the more severe, bustled silhouettes of about 1880. Little girls wear pinafores and short skirts rather than miniature versions of their mothers’ attire. An ability to capture with a few brief strokes such nuances of status and style made Boudin enduringly popular with the middle-class Parisians he painted. __ Louis–Eugène Boudin (French, 1824–1898), Beach at Trouville, 1890, oil on panel, Norton Simon Museum, Gift of Mr. Cary Grant (fb)