# Hikers climbing up to a Mountain Chalet

- By: Henri Rousseau (French, 1844–1910)
- Date: c. 1888
- Medium: Black crayon, with graphite, heightened with white chalk and white pencil, on tan wove paper
- Classification: Drawing and Watercolor
- Dimensions: 38.9 × 31.8 cm (15 3/8 × 12 9/16 in.)
- Culture: France
- Credit line: Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/186405)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/94cd3bcb-3e75-95ba-b1dd-b776a1e6cfe9/full/!1857,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Little Ones profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

When Rousseau was a toll operator for one of Paris’s city gates, he made the decision to become an artist. With no academic training, he started copying works at the Musée du Louvre in 1884 and two years later exhibited his works with the Neo-Impressionists at the Salon des Indépendants. In this drawing Rousseau’s lack of formal training is evident in the flattened forms and odd spatial relations of the landscape. These idiosyncrasies would inspire artists such as Vasily Kandinsky and Pablo Picasso.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0