Henri Rousseau – The Fishermen

Henri Rousseau earned the nickname "the Sunday painter." His day job as a customs officer meant he could only paint on his one day off, Sundays — essentially a side hustle by today's standards. Customs work, unlike its modern image, was poorly paid and demanding at the time, so Rousseau eventually reasoned that if the pay was never going to amount to much anyway, he might as well do what he loved, and left the customs service to paint full time.

This painting dates from that full-time period, made during the leisure time Rousseau gained after quitting his job, while out enjoying his hobby of fishing. Despite the title, fishing isn't really the painting's subject — the real protagonist is the airplane overhead. This was the era right after the Wright brothers had just invented powered flight, and the aircraft shown here, built by Wilbur Wright, is notable for having no wheels. Airplanes at the time were a sensation on the scale of today's smartphones or AI, and Rousseau was far from the only painter drawn to depicting them.