1891: The First Jungle Painting Rousseau showed his first jungle painting in the Salon des lndipendants —the seventh such event — in the year following his self-portrait. Only years later would this be followed by his second jungle painting, and then all the others on that theme. The title is Surprise!: in a storm•lashed jungle. under a rainy sky lit up by flashes of lightning, a tiger comes across something that surprises it, or that is surprised by it; both the title and the painting itself leave this open to conjecture. Snarling, with fangs bared, the magnificent tiger creeps up on its prey, which is hidden from the viewer's gaze. The strong movement of the forest, which, however, barely affects the plants in the fore-ground, differentiates the painting from Rousseau's later ones of the jungle. which are all totally motionless. Only on a single other occasion did he paint agglomeration of branches, twigs, and leaves. There are about ten surviving examples in his artistic oeuvre that demonstrate this step from the free sketch to the definitive work. It is as though the artist was neglecting to use a proficiency that was obviously within his grasp. These sketches are often called "impressionistic: This is erroneous, as Impressionism cannot be defined merely through loose brushwork. Rousseau was never affected by Impressionism, he never employed the "comma script" of the Impressionists, he never made us of the prismatic breakdown of color, and he never regarded as his concern the liberation of color from the object and as an end in itself. His sketches had a tonal quality — in other words, they were pre-Impressionist in character and their freedom was just that of the brushstroke and was restricted to the