Like the Romantic painters Rousseau  was rejected by the Official School in Paris and it was not until 1848 that he was acclaimed and recognised as a successful artist. He  exhibited six works in the Salons of 1831, 1833, 1834 and 1835, but in 1836 his great work Paysage du Jura ‘La descente des vaches’ was rejected by the  jury. He sent another eight works to the Salon between 1836 and 1841; but they were all rejected. For 8 years he did not submit any work but finally in  1849,  all three of his submissions were accepted. Not surprisingly he was known as "le grand refusé" 

During his period of artistic exile Rousseau in Barbizon, Rousseau produced some of his best pictures: The Chestnut Avenue, The Marsh in the Landes Hoar-Frost and in 1851, after the reorganisation of the Salon in 1848, he exhibited his masterpiece, The Edge of the Forest. 

As well as admiring his fabulous works, one becomes aware of  Rousseau’s  efforts to raise awareness for the fragility of the forest of Fontainebleau.