Black Man Attacked by a Jaguar 1910

Henri Rousseau painted "Black Man Attacked by a Jaguar" with oil on canvas, but the exact date is unknown. It's a tight scene, dense with details, like he’s layering experience on top of experience. Rousseau's greens feel very built up, one on top of the other. Each individual leaf is painted with incredible precision. Look at the very front, where you can almost feel the texture of the foliage. It’s like he's trying to capture the feeling of being lost in a jungle, where the line between real and imagined blurs. The red sun peering through the leaves feels especially poignant, in contrast to the dramatic scene unfolding in the jungle. I always think of him alongside artists like Séraphine Louis, who let their inner vision and creative logic take precedence over accuracy. Rousseau’s painting invites us to see the world through a different lens.