Art has many different forms and styles, all unique to the artist holding their chosen medium to the canvas. In the painting Women Walking in an Exotic Forest by Henri Rousseau, there can be multiple interpretations of the image, at first glance and after research. The image can be seen as a metaphor for the world, however there is a much simpler reason for the painting. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayThe interpretation that is perceived as a metaphor is because the style of the painting has so many small, and probably missed, details that can explain the whole meaning behind the image. The painting shows a girl wearing a pale pink dress, standing behind some magnified trees and flowers. Look at the boldness of the lines, they are not thin but thick and make the painting have the ability to belong to a children's storybook. However, due to the complexity of the lines, it allows for a different purpose to be bold, as well as the other details within the paintings aid this separation from a child's storybook. The easily overlooked detail is that all the plants around the women are unnaturally larger than they necessarily should be; the proportions are wrong compared to reality. These are the proportions because the woman is supposed to appear small, despite being the focal point of the painting; it should make it seem irrelevant. The flowers are bigger than her and the leaves cover a part of her, it metaphorically means that in such a big world, a small person does not seem relevant. The painting wouldn't actually fit into a children's storybook, because it's not necessarily "sad," but it's not exactly "happy" either. The painting evokes a feeling of insignificance, Rousseau made the plants unnaturally large on purpose, because the woman peers out into the world, and if people don't look closely enough, she is easily missed. However, by researching the artist Henri Rousseau and him as a primitive painter, she brings to life a different interpretation of Women Walking in an Exotic Forest. Rousseau is a primitive artist who constantly believes in the life of the "noble savage". Rousseau didn't like enjoying city life, he liked the "wild" lifestyle because they didn't care about fashion, nor did they work to exhaustion, and basically lived a simple, everyday lifestyle. Rousseau had many similar reasons for being a primitivist artist like Paul Gauguin. Gauguin did not like Paris and saw it as grey, dirty and without anyone in common. He liked how the people of Tahiti lived. Gauguin saw: “civilization from which (people) suffer. Barbarism which is a rejuvenation." Rousseau refers to this statement because when he stopped earning a living at the age of forty-nine, to become a full-time painter. He didn't care about being part of city life or having responsibilities because all he wanted to do was paint jungles and forests. He became so thorough in his painterly lifestyle that his two surviving children had to be cared for by their uncles, because Rousseau neglected them for a bachelor lifestyle. Rousseau is seen as a primitivist artist because he did not paint modernity, but painted simple things and not necessarily seen as sophisticated. The painting Women Walking in an Exotic Forest shows this kind of simplicity, it is simply a woman walking in a forest and the garden seems enlarged, as Rousseau was known not to paint with human hands and fingers. Most of his paintings are usually animals or people of some kind.