Woman Walking in an Exotic Forest, 1905 by Henri Rousseau

When asked where he learned so much about the jungle, Rousseau commented on his army years spent in Mexico; however, art historians agree that this was a fabrication. Garden plants and tropical vegetation combine in monstrous or eerily miniscule forms, sometimes overwhelming the unlikely characters around them. To the right, dressed as a woman of the times, the figure stands amid a stage-like jungle surrounded by overgrown houseplants and dwarfed by trees which grow oranges bigger than her head. Combining the extravagant and the miniscule is a major point of Magical Realist art.