(1812-1867) French landscape painter. (Etienne-Pierre) French landscape painter of the Barbizon School. Born in Paris, he came under the influence of the English landscape painters Constable and Bonington, sketched from nature in many parts of France, and settled in Barbizon 1848.

(1712-1778) French author and philosopher; one of the founders of Romanticism; author of The Social Contract, The New Eloise and Confessions.
(1712-1778) French social philosopher and writer. His book Du Contrat social/Social Contract 1762, emphasizing the rights of the people over those of the government, was a significant influence on the French Revolution. In the novel Emile 1762, he outlined a new theory of education.
Rousseau was born in Geneva, Switzerland. Discourses on the Origins of Inequality 1754 made his name: he denounced civilized society and postulated the paradox of the superiority of the “noble savage”. In Social Contract he argued that government is justified only if sovereignty stays with the people. He thereby rejected representative democracy in favor of direct democracy, modeled on the Greek polis and the Swiss canton, and stated that a government could be legitimately overthrown if it failed to express the general will of the people. Emile was written as an example of how to elicit the unspoiled nature and abilities of children, based on natural development and the power of example.
Rousseau’s ideas were condemned by philosophers, the clergy, and the public, and he lived in exile in England for a year, being helped by Scottish philosopher David Hume until they fell out. He was a contributor to the Encyclopédie and also wrote operas. Confessions, published posthumously 1782, was a frank account of his occasionally immoral life and was a founding work of autobiography.

(1844-1910) French painter of primitive style works; Also called: Le Douanier Rousseau.
“Le Douanier” French painter. A self-taught naive artist, his subjects include scenes of the Parisian suburbs and exotic junglescapes, painted with painstaking detail; for example, Tropical Storm with a Tiger 1891 (National Gallery, London).
Rousseau served in the army for some years, then became a toll collector (hence Le Douanier, “the customs official”), and finally took up full-time painting 1885. He exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants 1886–1910 and was associated with the group led by Picasso and the poet Apollinaire.