Landscape with Factory 1906

Henri Rousseau made this oil painting, Landscape with Factory, and who knows when? The more I look at this painting, the more it feels to me like a stage set. The artist is looking at the landscape of modernity, with the factory, the houses, and the tiny figures, all arranged so neatly. It’s as if he’s trying to make sense of it all, almost as if he were building a world from scratch. There’s this strange mix of flatness and depth, of naivety and knowing. Everything seems carefully placed, like objects in a still life, but there's also something unsettling about the perspective. I feel like he’s inviting us to step into his world, where the ordinary becomes magical and a little bit spooky. It reminds me how painting is like an open-ended conversation, an invitation for us to engage with the artist’s vision.