Page 13 - Theodore Rousseau: A Magnificent Obsession

Fig. 2 - Rousseau’s studio today

With the brief liberalisation that followed the Revolution of 1848, Rousseau finally returned
to the Salon and for the next seventeen years he exhibited regularly, precipitously rising and
falling in public and critical esteem as he pressed forward with his own experiments in
landscape painting. His Japoniste colours and pointilliste techniques often disturbed avant garde
critics as much as they offended more conservative writers. Finally, an impressive retrospective
of his major Salon paintings at the Exposition Universelle of 1867 (along with a ground-breaking
dealer’s exhibition of his early paintings and sketches) established Rousseau’s leadership of the
new school of French landscape beyond challenge.

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