THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Felicie de Fauveau.--Parentage.--Her Mother a Legitimist.--The
Daughter’s Inheritance of Loyalty.--Removals.--Felicie’s
Studies.--Learns to Model.--Resolves to be a Sculptor.--Labor becoming
to a Gentlewoman.--Her first Works.--Early Triumphs.--Social Circle in
Paris.--Evening Employments.--Revival of a peculiar Taste.--Mediæval
Fashions.--The bronze Lamp.--Equestrian Sketch.--Effect of the
Revolution of 1830.--The two Felicies leave Paris.--A rural
Conspiracy.--A domiciliary Visit.--Escape of the Ladies.--Discovery
and Capture.--The Stratagem at the Inn.--Escape of Madame in
Disguise.--Imprisonment of Mademoiselle.--Works in Prison.--Return
to Paris.--Politics again.--Felicie banished.--Breaks up her
Studio.--Poverty and Privation.--Residence in Florence.--Brighter
Days.--Character of Felicie.--Personal Appearance.--Her Dwelling and
Studio.--Her Works.--The casting of a bronze Statue.--Industry and
Retirement.--“A good Woman and a great Artist.”--ROSA BONHEUR.--Her
Birth in Bordeaux.--Her Father.--Rosa a Dunce in Childhood.--Her
Parrot.--Rambles.--The Spanish Poet.--Removal to Paris.--Revolution
and Misfortune.--Death of Madame Bonheur.--The Children at
School.--Rosa detests Books and loves Roaming.--Remarriage of
Bonheur.--Rosa a Seamstress.--Hates the Occupation.--Prefers turning
the Lathe.--Her Unhappiness.--Placed at a Boarding-school.--Her
Pranks and Caricatures.--Abhorrence of Study.--Mortification at her
Want of fine Clothes.--Resolves to achieve a Name and a Place in the
World.--Discontent and Gloom.--Return home.--Left to herself.--Works
in the Studio.--Her Vocation apparent.--Studies at the Louvre.--Her
Ardor and Application.--The Englishman’s Prophecy.--Rosa vowed to
Art.--Devoted to the Study of Animals.--Excursions in the Country
in search of Models.--Visits the _Abattoirs_.--Study of various
Types.--Visits the Museums and Stables.--Resorts to the horse and
cattle Fairs in male Attire.--Curious Adventures.--Anatomical
Studies.--Advantages of her Excursions.--Her Father her only
Teacher.--The Family of Artists.--Rosa’s pet Birds and
Sheep.--Her first Appearance.--Rising Reputation.--Takes the gold
Medal.--Proclaimed the new Laureat.--Death of her Father.--Rosa
Directress of the School of Design.--Her Sister a Professor.--“The
Horse-market.”--Rosa’s Paintings.--Bestows her Fortune on
others.--Her Farm.--Drawings presented to Charities.--Demand for
her Paintings.--Her Right to the Cross of the Legion of Honor.--The
Emperor’s Refusal to grant it to a Woman.--Description of her
Residence and her Studio.--Rosa found asleep.--Her personal
Appearance.--Dress.--Her Character.--Her Industry.--Mademoiselle
Micas.--Mountain Rambles.--Rosa’s Visit to Scotland.--Her Life in the
Mountains.--At the Spanish Posada.--Threatened Starvation.--Cooking
Frogs.--The Muleteers.--Rosa’s Scotch Terrier.--Her Resolution never
to marry.
FELICIE DE FAUVEAU.
Felicie was born in Tuscany, but was taken, when an infant, to Paris,
where her education commenced. Her parents were persons of much
intelligence and culture. Her mother had great taste for music and
painting, and it was from her that her daughter’s talents received
their first direction and encouragement. The family favored the
aristocrats and Legitimists, and endured much in the cause of the
Bourbons. Madame de Fauveau’s eyes had opened on the terrors of
the guillotine, and she was as proud of those memories of exile,
proscription, and the scaffold as most persons are of honor and titles.
Her chivalrous loyalty looked on them as dignities, and the privilege
of suffering for the family to which she was devoted was cheaply earned
in her eyes by the ruin and exile of her own.
The daughter shared in the mother’s chivalrous sentiments, and her
cherished ideas of monarchy and Romanism became perceptible in her
conversation and works, while her self-sacrificing spirit of loyalty
remained the same amid many vicissitudes. Owing to pecuniary losses,
her parents were compelled, while she was yet very young, to remove
successively to Limoux, Bayonne, and Besançon. While at Bayonne,
in 1823, she met with many partisans in the war then raging on the
frontiers of Spain--men whose loyalty amounted to fanaticism, and
whose piety belonged to the ancient time of the Crusades; from these
her youthful imagination must have received powerful and indelible
impressions.
Her studies were varied and profound; ancient history, classic and
modern languages, heraldry, and archæology received her devoted
attention. The feudal and chivalric traditions of the Middle Ages were
explored with eagerness by her, and she reproduced and utilized the
knowledge thus acquired. During her residence in Besançon, she executed
some oil-paintings which were much praised; but she seemed to feel that
canvas was not the material which would most fully express her ideas.
She had then received no instruction in modeling. One day, in her walk,
she paused before the shop of one of the workmen who carve images of
virgins and saints for village churches. Impelled irresistibly, she
entered and made inquiries as to the method of work, learning thus
the secrets of modeling in clay or wax, and of carving wood or gold.
It then appeared that her vocation was decidedly for the plastic art.
She had the faculty of coloring with skill, and might have been a
great painter, had she not resolved to be a sculptor. Her taste led
her to adopt the mediæval manner, and she took Benevenuto Cellini for
her prototype, occupying herself with art in both its monumental and,
decorative character.
At the death of her father, the family--consisting of the widow, two
sons and three daughters--was in some distress. Felicie determined to
devote her talents to their support. Some of her friends objected that
such employment was unbecoming one who belonged to a noble family.
“Unbecoming!” said she, drawing herself up with a noble pride; “_Sachez
qu’un artiste tel que moi est gentilhomme._”
The first work she exhibited was a group from Scott’s novel,
“The Abbot.” Encouraged by its brilliant success, she produced a
basso-relievo, consisting of six figures--Christina of Sweden and
Monaldeschi in the fatal gallery of Fontainebleau. This work was in
the Exposition des Beaux Arts, and it received from Charles X. in
person the gold medal awarded by the jury. The dramatic energy of the
group, the expression of the figures, and the beauty of the minor
details won universal admiration, and it was hailed as offering the
brightest promise of future excellence. The triumphant artist was then
a girl in the bloom of early youth; and, flattered and delighted at
the appreciation she met with, it is not to be wondered at that her
resolution to adhere to the career she had chosen was steadfast and
immovable.
Felicie remained in Paris with her family till 1830. Her mother’s
house was the centre of a charming circle of persons of high rank,
of cultivated women, and of accomplished artists, such as Scheffer,
Steuben, Gassier, Paul Delaroche, Triqueti, Gros, Giraud, etc. So
distinguished and agreeable was the mother, so sensible and so witty
was the conversation of the daughter, that their society was coveted
and prized. The friends assembled of an evening in their drawing-room
would gather round a large centre-table, and improvise drawings in
pencil, chalk, and pen and ink; or would model, in clay or wax,
brooches and ornaments, sword handles and scabbards, dagger-hilts, etc.
The young lady wished to revive those famous days when sculpture lent
its aid to the gold and silver smith, the jeweler, the clock-maker,
and the armorer. To her may be chiefly attributed the impulse given
to this taste in Paris--a taste that infected England also, reviving
mediæval fashions for ornaments, and also mediæval feelings and
aspirations, which at last found expression in Puseyism in religion,
and pre-Raphaelism in art.
She executed, for Count Portalès, a bronze lamp of singular beauty,
representing a bivouac of archangels armed as knights. They are resting
round a watch-fire, while one, St. Michael, is standing sentinel. It
is in the old Anglo-Saxon style. Round the lamp, in golden letters, is
the device, “_Vaillant, veillant_.” Beneath is a stork’s foot holding a
pebble, a symbol of vigilance, surrounded by beautiful aquatic plants.
The work was poetically conceived, and executed with great spirit and
finish. She also commenced a work which she called “a monument to
Dante,” and sketched an equestrian statue of Charles VIII. On returning
from the expedition to Naples, it was said, the monarch paused on the
ascent of the Alps, and turned to take a last farewell of the beautiful
country--“wooed, not wed”--which he so unwillingly abandoned. The
sculptress was most successful in rendering this expression of sadness
and yearning. The pose of the horse was natural, yet commanding; and
the work would doubtless have been a master-piece; but, unfortunately,
the model had to be destroyed, on the breaking up of her studio.
Mademoiselle de Fauveau had now acquired an eminence and gained
a celebrity which must have satisfied the most ambitious. She was
incessantly occupied with commissions for most of the private galleries
in France; and a place was promised her among those great artists who
are employed to adorn public monuments, and whose works enrich public
collections. She was to have modeled two doors for the gallery in the
Louvre, after the manner of Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise; a baptistery
and pulpit in one of the metropolitan churches had been already spoken
of, when the revolution of 1830 broke up this calm and noble existence,
and ended her career in Paris.
To Mademoiselle de Fauveau, with her extreme opinions, this revolution
was a personal calamity. She had identified the glory and greatness of
France with the elder branch of the Bourbons. The times for her were
evil and out of joint; she abhorred the Paris which had overthrown
what she considered a legitimate, to set up a pseudo royalty, and
she longed, with all the concentration and single-mindedness of her
character, for an opportunity of leaving the city. This soon presented
itself. Among other noble and distinguished persons who were proud of
their acquaintance with this gifted woman, were members of the Duras
family. The married daughter, who bore the beloved but fatal name of La
Roche Jacquelein, sympathized entirely with the opinions and feelings
of her namesake, Felicie. She invited the artist to leave Paris, and
accompany her on a visit to her estates in La Vendée. During this
visit, which was at first considered a mere relaxation from severe
labor and study, riding, shooting, and hunting took the place of
designing, modeling, and casting. But, after a while, a more serious
purpose was contemplated, and a loftier end proposed. Mademoiselle
de Fauveau found herself in the thick of a political conspiracy.
A regular _chouannerie_ was organized, and our poetical artist
distinguished herself by her spirit, energy, and determination. To this
day the peasantry in that part of France always speak of her as “_la
demoiselle_.”
The authorities at last took umbrage, and a domiciliary visit was made
to the chateau. The two ladies, warned in time, escaped, and took
refuge in a neighboring farm-house. But arms and ammunitions were found
in the chateau, with compromising letters and treasonable symbols.
Orders were given to pursue and arrest the fugitives. The farm-house
was searched in vain; the peasants were questioned, but their fidelity
was unimpeachable. Unfortunately, however, some faint sounds were heard
behind an oven; the grated door was removed, and the two rebels, who
had so nearly defeated the search of their pursuers, were discovered,
arrested, and sent under a strong guard to Angers.
At the first stage they stopped at an inn. The captives were conducted
to a room up stairs; the door was locked, and their guards descended to
the kitchen to refresh themselves. Presently a maid-servant was sent
up to receive their orders for supper. In an instant, Madame de la
Roche Jacquelein made herself understood by this woman. As soon as the
supper was brought up, and the door closed, she effected an exchange
of clothes, and, thus disguised, descended boldly, plates in hand,
to the kitchen. She quickly deposited her burden on the dresser, and
then, taking up the milk-pail, announced in the pretty _patois_ of the
country her intention to fetch the milk from the dairy. It is said the
lady looked so captivating in her new costume that a gallant sergeant
made advances to her, which she was obliged to repress vigorously, so
as to proceed unattended. She reached the dairy, went out at a back
door, crossed some fields, and was soon out of reach. Mademoiselle
de Fauveau remained quietly in her room, allowing the servant to
sleep with her, so as to lull all suspicion, and give as much time as
possible for the escape. The next morning the evasion of Madame was
discovered, and caused great consternation. It was thought necessary
to take the most rigid precautions, such as obliging Mademoiselle de
Fauveau to have a guard in her sleeping-room, who was authorized to
disturb her whenever he wished to make sure of her presence, to prevent
her following her friend’s example. She was thus transferred to Angers,
and remained seven months in prison.
Her bold spirit and elastic temperament were not weakened or cast down
by this destruction of her hopes. She took advantage of the forced
seclusion to resume her occupations. In prison she modeled several
small groups; one of them, composed of twelve figures, representing the
duel of the Sire de Jarnee and the Count de la Chataignevaie in the
presence of Henry II. and his court. She also designed a monument for
Louis de Bonnechose, who had lately perished in an affray with some
soldiers sent to arrest him. The background of this composition is
architectural, in the Gothic style, adorned with the blazoned shields,
achievements, and banners which belong peculiarly to the Vendean
party. On the summit of the edifice is an angel, whose face is veiled,
supporting the armorial shield of the deceased; in the foreground
the Archangel Michael, terrible and victorious, has just killed the
dragon. This dragon has a head like a cock--a type of the French
republic. Michael bears in his right hand the avenging sword, and in
his left holds a pair of crystal scales; in one of these are figures
of judges, advocates, and magistrates; in the other, which weighs down
these, is a single drop of blood, with this inscription:
“Quam gravis est sanguis justi inultus.”
In this sketch, as, indeed, in all Felicie’s works, the symbolical
beauty inspires the whole; the ideal gives spirit to the material form,
while the form receives its noblest distinction as the fitting vehicle
of the idea.
After seven months’ imprisonment, Mademoiselle de Fauveau was set at
liberty, and returned to Paris and her studio. Very soon afterward, the
appearance of the Duchesse de Berri in Vendée set on fire all Royalist
imaginations. Madame de la Roche Jacquelein and our fair artist again
left Paris, and worked day and night for the cause so dear to their
hearts, to reap again disappointment, failure, and misfortune. This
episode in Felicie’s life may show how strong was the political bias
which gave tone and character to both her private and artistic life.
“My opinions are dearer to me than my art,” she said, and her actions
proved this. She was one of the forlorn hope that stood up in the
breach to save a falling dynasty; and with its ruins were ingulfed her
own fortune, her prospects, and such part of her success as depended on
the public recognition and acceptance of art in her own country.
After the failure of this second attempt of the Legitimists,
Mademoiselle de Fauveau was among the persons exiled. She first took
refuge in Switzerland; then returned to Paris, in the very teeth of
the authorities, broke up her studio and establishment there, and went
to Florence, where she fixed her permanent abode with her mother and
brother.
Considerable expense and outlay are necessary to carry on the art
of sculpture, and a removal from a studio in which were accumulated
sketches, models, and marbles--most of them not portable--was almost
total ruin. The forced sale of furniture; the transfer, at a heavy
discount, of funds which had to be reinvested, added serious items
to the amount of loss. From the fragments thus thrown aside fortunes
were made. At the very time when the little family was enduring bitter
privation in Florence, a man realized an almost fabulous sum by selling
walking-sticks manufactured from designs made by Mademoiselle de
Fauveau in those happy Paris evenings before mentioned.
The expense attendant on establishing a new studio in Florence had
to be met by the labor of many years. Madame de Fauveau, at this
period, was the guardian angel of the family, and thought no sacrifice
too great for the encouragement of her daughter’s genius, and the
advancement of her views. Her own poetical and imaginative mind aroused
and fostered the ideas of the sculptress, while her unflinching
resignation and humble faith soothed and solaced her heart.
With unparalleled nobleness, in spite of extreme poverty, the family
refused to receive a sous from the princes or the party they had so
served. No fleck of the world’s dust can be thrown on that spotless
fidelity. It was at this period, when each day’s labor scarcely
sufficed to provide for daily necessities, that Mademoiselle de Fauveau
wrote to one of her friends, “We artists are like the Hebrews of old;
manna is sent to us, but on condition we save none for the morrow.”
Brighter days dawned. Labor is not only its own reward, in the
happiness it confers, but those who sow unweariedly and judiciously
shall reap fairly. Our sculptress achieved a modest independence. It
was probably at this time of her life that her friend the Baroness de
Krafft sketched her character, dwelling on the contrasts presented
by her history, in which her mind was developed, and the bent of her
nature determined. “Fire, air, and water,” she says, “are in that
organization;” and it is true that ardor, purity, and impulse are
the characteristics of her genius. On the one hand we see the lady
of the Faubourg St. Germaine, with all the habits, associations, and
prejudices which belong to her order; on the other, the artist, earning
her daily bread, and obliged to face in their reality the sternest
necessities and most imperative obligations; the single woman treading
victoriously the narrow and thorny path which all women tread who
seek to achieve independence by their own exertions; and the genius
which, to attain breadth and vigor, must freely sweep out of its path
limitations and obstacles. These contrasts appear in her person and
manner. Her glance, usually soft, can kindle and grow stern. Madame de
Krafft notices that the movements of her arms are somewhat abrupt and
angular, but her hands “are white, soft, and fine, royal as the hands
of Cæsar, or of Leonardo da Vinci.”
Mademoiselle de Fauveau is described by a visitor as being fair, with
low and broad forehead; soft, brown, penetrating eyes, aquiline nose,
and mouth finely chiseled, well closed, and slightly sarcastic. Of the
medium height, her figure is flexible and well formed. Her ordinary
studio dress is velvet, of that “_feuille morte_” color Madame Cottin
has made famous; with a jacket of the same fastened by a small leathern
belt, a _foulard_ round the neck, and a velvet cap. Her hair is blonde,
cut square on the forehead and short on the neck, and left rather
longer at the sides, in the Vandyke manner. The face, and figure,
and presence, give the impress of a firm but not aggressive nature,
revealing the energy of resistance, not of defiance. Opinions strongly
held and enunciated, defended to the death, if necessary, give such
an aspect. Combined with this peculiarity is a look of thoughtful
melancholy, such as Retzch has represented in his sketches of Faust. In
fact, the head, in a statuette of herself, might serve as an ideal of
the world-famous student. There are two admirable likenesses of her:
one by Ary Scheffer and one by Giraud.
Her dwelling is in the Via delle Fornace, where are also the studios of
Powers and Fedi. A dark green door opens into a paved covered court,
formerly the entrance to a convent, which is now adapted to form a
modern habitation. On one side a flight of stairs leads to the upper
rooms, another door leads to the studio; a third opens on a cool,
quiet garden, shaded by trees. There are dovecotes, pigeon-houses,
and bird-cages; and the walks are hedged with laurels and cypresses,
while there are gay flowers mingled with Etruscan vases and jars.
The artist’s drawing-room looks like the parlor of an abbess,
furnished with antique hangings, carved chairs, silver crucifixes,
and gold-grounded, pre-Raphaelite pictures, some of great beauty and
value. From this drawing-room, half oratory and half boudoir, the
visitor descends to the studio, which is composed of two or three large
white-washed rooms on the ground floor.
The first thing that strikes one here is the evidence of the artist’s
indefatigable industry. Here are casts and bassi-relievi from the
antique, but no goddesses, nymphs, or cupids; it is Christian art of
the mediæval period. Saints and angels cover the walls; in the centre
is a large crucifix of carved wood, beautifully executed, and full
of vigor and expression; near it is a Santa Reparata, designed in
terra-cotta. Mademoiselle de Fauveau has been peculiarly successful
in her adaptation of terra-cotta to artistic purposes. A large
alto-relievo represents two freed spirits flying heavenward, dropping
their earthly chains. A lovely St. Dorothea looks upward, and holds up
her hands for a basket of flowers and fruit which a descending angel
is bringing from Paradise. Bold and rapid movement is expressed in
the flying figure. In the background is an architectural design of a
church, and an inscription describing how it sprang, as it were, from
the martyr’s blood. There is a Judith addressing the Israelites from
an open gallery, with the head of Holofernes on a spear beside her. In
the aspect of the resolute woman of Bethulia there is an undefinable
resemblance to the artist. The expression, indeed, is congenial to her
character, in which there is the concentration of purpose which gives
force, and the ardor that gives decision to the will.
There are also works of a lighter character; the carved frame-work
of a mirror, with an exquisite allegorical design--a fop and a
coquette, in elaborate costume, are bending inward toward the glass,
so intent on self-admiration as to be unconscious that a demon below
has caught their feet in a line or snare from which they will not be
able to extricate themselves without falling. Most of Mademoiselle
de Fauveau’s works have superabundant richness of ornament and
allegorical device. Her designs for gold and silver ornaments are
unrivaled for elegance and imaginative picturesqueness.
She made for Count Zichy a Hungarian costume, the collar, belt, sword,
and spurs being of the most finished workmanship. A silver bell,
ornamented with twenty figures, for the Empress of Russia, represents a
mediæval household, in the costumes of the period, and their peculiar
avocations, assembling at the call of three stewards, whose figures
form the handle. Round the ball is blazoned, in Gothic characters, “_De
bon vouloir servir le maître_.”
It would be tedious to enumerate the works of this indefatigable
artist. The finished specimens of twenty-five years of labor are shut
up in private galleries, the models remaining in her studio. Her last
and most imposing work is the monument in Santa Croce, erected to the
memory of Louise Favreau by her parents. Madame de Krafft published a
description of this in the _Revue Britannique_ for March, 1857. Three
monuments, in different styles, may be seen in the Lindsay chapel. In
her studio are several busts of great beauty, strongly relieved by her
method of placing an architectural back-ground. One is the bust of the
Marquis de Bretignières, the founder of the reformatory school colony
of Mettray.
Besides devoting herself to the actual expression of her ideas, Madame
de Fauveau has, all her life, studied to improve the mere mechanical
portion of her art. She endeavored to revive certain secrets known
to the ancients, which have been abandoned and forgotten, to the
detriment of modern sculpture. To cast a statue entire, instead of in
portions, and with so much precision as to require no farther touch
of the chisel--to preserve inviolate, as it were, the idea, while it
is subject to the difficult process of clothing it with form, has been
her life-long endeavor. In bronze, by means of wax, she succeeded,
after repeated failures, with incredible perseverance. A figure of
St. Michael in one of her works was thus cast seven times. The least
obstacle, were it only the breadth of a pin’s point in one of the
air-vents which are necessary to draw the seething metal into every
part of the mould, is enough to destroy the work. At last her head
workman brought her St. Michael complete; all the energy and delicacy
of the original design being preserved, and none of the pristine
freshness lost in the translation from wax to bronze.
Mademoiselle de Fauveau works almost incessantly, scarcely allowing
herself any relaxation. Her principal associates are a few of the
higher church dignitaries, and two or three distinguished Italian or
foreign families. Retirement is agreeable to her, and her political
opinions have drawn around her a line of demarkation. She has paid two
visits to Rome: one when the Duc de Bordeaux was there. He paid her
much attention, as did the two great princes of art, Cornelius and
Tenerani, at that time in Rome. Thus situated, beloved by many, admired
and appreciated by all, this clever artist and noble woman leads an
honored life, which seems a realized dream of work, progress, and
success.
From every point of view, a life so spent is a curious and interesting
study. There is the independence belonging to an existence devoted
to art, with almost cloistral simplicity and formality. She had been
hardly ever separated from her proud and devoted mother till her
death, in 1858. The loss left her inconsolable. Her brother, an artist
of merit, resides with her, assists in most of her works, and is the
support and comfort of her life. Her happy home and domestic relations
have helped to expand and refine her genius. A woman’s art, as well as
her heart, suffers when the home in which she works is uncongenial. Our
artist’s name--Felicie--has proved a good omen for one who is at once
“a good woman and a great artist.”
ROSA BONHEUR.[3]
[3] This sketch was prepared under the supervision of Mademoiselle
Bonheur.
Rosalie Bonheur--as she is called in her _acte de naissance_--was born
in Bordeaux on the 16th of March, 1822. Her father, Oscar Raymond
Bonheur, was a painter of merit, who had in youth taken the highest
honors at the exhibitions of his native town. He devoted part of his
time to giving drawing-lessons in families for the support of his
aged parents. An attachment sprung up between him and one of his
pupils--Sophie Marqués--a lovely and accomplished girl. Her family
opposed their union on account of the artist’s poverty; and after the
marriage the young people were thrown entirely on their own resources.
Rosalie was the eldest of their four children. Her father was compelled
to give up his dreams of fame and the higher labors of his art, and for
eight years maintained his family by teaching drawing.
Rosalie--or Rosa, as she has always called herself--was a wild, active,
impetuous child, impatient of restraint, and having a detestation of
study. She was a long time in acquiring even the elements of reading
and writing. When not in the fields, she was in the garden. She
remembers a gray parrot, a pet of her grandfather’s, that often called
out “Rosa! Rosa!” in a voice like her mother’s, and would bring her
in, when her mother would seize the opportunity to make her repeat her
catechism. When the lesson was over, the little girl would scold the
bird angrily for the trick it had played her. But if Rosa hated her
books, she dearly loved all objects in nature, and was happiest when
rambling in wood or meadow, gathering posies as large as herself. Her
complexion was fair, with rosy cheeks; her light auburn hair curled in
natural ringlets; and she was so plump that the Spanish poet Moratia,
who then lived in Bordeaux, and spent his evenings at Bonheur’s, used
to call her his “round ball.” He would romp with the merry child for
hours together, and laugh over the rude figures she was fond of cutting
out of paper. Rosa was fond of amusing herself in her father’s studio,
drawing rough outlines on the walls, or burying her little fat hands
in the clay, and making grotesque attempts at modeling, though these
childish efforts were not noticed by her family as showing any genius.
The exiled poet, however, saw the boldness, vigor, and originality of
her nature, and often prophesied that his favorite would turn out, in
some way, “a remarkable woman.”
In 1829 Raymond Bonheur quitted Bordeaux, and established himself
with his family in Paris. Interested in the ideas then fermenting in
the public mind, he entered into the excitement that preceded the
Revolution of July. Periods of national effervescence are not favorable
to art; the painter could not sell his pictures, and had to betake
himself once more to giving drawing-lessons. His wife gave lessons
on the piano; but the growing agitation of the social and political
world made their united exertions profitless. Madame Bonheur sustained
her husband’s courage throughout this trying period, while she was
often compelled, after the day’s labors, to sit up half the night to
earn with her needle a precarious support for the morrow. When public
tranquillity returned, Bonheur resumed his teaching, and had some of
his works noticed in the Paris Exhibition.
Madame Bonheur died in 1833. The father then placed the three elder
children with an honest woman--La Mère Cathérine--who lived in the
Champs Elysées; Juliette, the youngest, being sent to friends in
Bordeaux. La Mère sent her little charges to the Mutual School of
Chaillot. Rosa, now in her eleventh year, and detesting books and
confinement as heartily as ever, generally contrived to avoid the
school-room, and spent most of her time in the grassy and wooded
spots afforded in the Bois de Boulogne, and other environs of Paris.
Two years passed thus; the children being plainly clad and living on
the humblest fare. Rosa meanwhile, with her passion for independence
and outdoor life, incurred almost daily the angry reprimands of La
Mère Cathérine, who was distressed at her neglect of school for her
rambles. “I never spent an hour of fine weather indoors during the
whole of the time,” she often said. But this sort of gipsy life could
not last. Raymond Bonheur married again, took a house in the Faubourg
du Roule, brought the three children home, and endeavored to put them
in a way to make a position for themselves. The two boys--Auguste and
Isidore--were placed in a respectable school, in which their father
gave three lessons a week by way of payment; and Rosa, who could not be
got to learn any thing out of a book, and seemed to have neither taste
nor talent for any thing but rambling about in the sunshine, was placed
with a seamstress, in order that she might learn to make a living by
her needle.
Nothing could have been more disagreeable to the poor girl than the
monotonous employment to which she was thus condemned. The mere act of
sitting still on a chair was torture to her active temperament; she ran
the needle into her fingers at every stitch, and bending over her hated
task made her head ache, and filled her with inexpressible weariness
and disgust. The husband of the seamstress was a turner, and had his
lathe in an adjoining room. Rosa’s sole consolation was to slip into
this room, and obtain the turner’s permission to help him work the
lathe. If he were absent, she would do her utmost to set the lathe in
motion by herself, more than once doing some damage to the turner’s
tools. But these stolen pleasures were insufficient to compensate her
for the repulsiveness of her new avocation; and whenever her father,
with his pockets full of bonbons, came to see her and learn how she
was getting on, she would throw herself into his arms in a passion
of tears, and beseech him to take her away. Every week her distress
became more and more evident; she lost her appetite and color, and was
apparently falling ill. Her father was much disappointed at the ill
success of his attempt to make of his wild daughter an orderly and
industrious needle-woman; but he was too fond of her to persevere in
an experiment so repugnant to her feelings. He therefore broke off the
arrangement with the seamstress, and took her home.
After thinking over many plans for her, he at length succeeded in
making an arrangement for her reception in a boarding-school in the
Rue de Reuilly, Faubourg St. Antoine, on the same terms as those he
had obtained for her brothers. A vast deal of good advice was expended
on her, with many earnest exhortations to make the best use of the
advantages of the school, by diligent application to her studies.
For a short time after her entrance into this establishment, Rosa was
delighted with her new life, for she speedily became a favorite with
her young companions, the leader in all their games, and the inventor
of innumerable pranks. But the teachers were far from being equally
satisfied with the new pupil, who could not be got to learn a lesson,
and who threw the household into confusion with her doings. One of
her favorite amusements was to draw caricatures of the governesses
and professors; which caricatures, after coloring, she cut out very
carefully, and contrived to fasten to the ceiling of the school-room,
by means of bread patiently chewed to the consistence of putty,
and applied to the heads of the figures. The sensation created by
this novel exhibition of portraiture, and the ludicrous bowings and
courtesyings of the paper figures, as they swayed over the heads of
their originals, may be easily imagined. The pupils would go beside
themselves with suppressed laughter; the teachers were naturally more
displeased than diverted. The mistress of the establishment, struck
with the vigor and originality of these drawings, caused them to be
detached from the ceiling, and placed them privately in an album,
where, it is said, they have been treasured to this day. But Rosa was
none the less pronounced a very naughty girl; and she generally found
herself condemned to bread and water about five days in the week.
Rosa Bonheur is by no means deficient in the faculty of acquiring
knowledge, and has since made up, in her own way, for her early
disinclination to study; but it was absolutely impossible for her,
at that time, to constrain her mercurial temperament to the measured
regularity of a class; and the only branch of study in which she made
any progress was drawing, which she practiced assiduously, sharing the
lessons given twice a week by her father in return for her schooling.
Rosa, however, was far from happy. Besides the constant trouble in
which her love of frolic and mischief involved her, there was another
annoyance that poisoned her peace, and gradually rendered her stay in
the school intolerably painful.
All the other pupils being daughters of rich tradesmen, they were
elegantly dressed, and had their silver forks and cups at table, and
plenty of pocket-money for the gratification of their school-girl
fancies. Rosa, with her calico frocks and coarse shoes, her iron
spoon, tin mug, and empty pockets, felt keenly the inferiority of
her position. Her father was as good and as clever as the fathers
of her companions; why, then, was he not rich? Why must she wear
calico and drink out of tin, while the other girls had silver mugs
and beautiful silk dresses? Too generous to be envious, and treated
as a favorite by the other pupils, the proud and sensitive child yet
recoiled instinctively from a contact which awakened in her mind an
unreasoning sense of injustice, and humiliated her, as she felt, for
no fault of her own. She had no wish to deprive her little companions
of the superior advantages of their lot, but she longed to possess
the same, tormenting herself day and night with pondering on her
difficulties, and seeking to devise some plan by which they might be
overcome. To this period, with its secret mental experiences, is to be
traced that firm resolve to achieve a name and a place for herself in
the world--to a perception of whose social facts she was now beginning
to awaken--which sustained her through the subsequent phases of her
artistic development. Yet this resolve, though prompted by a galling
sense of the humble character of her wardrobe and “belongings,”
pointed less to the acquisition of greater elegance of dress and
personal conditions--to which she has subsequently shown herself almost
indifferent--than to the attainment of a superior and independent
social position. She was determined to be something, though she could
not see what, and felt no doubt of the accomplishment of her purpose,
though as yet she had no idea of the mode in which it was to be carried
out. Meanwhile, her secret discontent preyed on her spirits and
affected her health. She became reserved and gloomy, and while seeking,
with feverish anxiety, to devise the sort of work that should enable
her to gain for herself the superior position she so ardently coveted,
she became more and more neglectful of her studies, until, her teachers
and her father being alike discouraged by her seeming idleness, the
latter withdrew her from the school, and once more took her home.
More than ever perplexed what to do with her, her father now left her
for a time entirely to herself. Thus abandoned to her own spontaneous
actions, Rosa, who felt that the idle and aimless life she had hitherto
led was little calculated to help her to the realization of her secret
ambition, and who was full of unacknowledged regret and remorse for her
incapacity and uselessness, sought refuge from her own uncomfortable
thoughts in her father’s studio, where she amused herself with
imitating every thing she saw him do; drawing and modeling, day after
day, with the utmost diligence and delight, happy as long as she had
in her hands a pencil, a piece of charcoal, or a lump of clay. In the
quiet and congenial activity of the studio, her excited feelings became
calm, and her ideas grew clearer; she began to understand herself, and
to devise the path nature had marked out for her. As this change took
place in her mind, the desultory and purposeless child became rapidly
transformed into the earnest, self-conscious, determined woman. She
drew and modeled from morning till night with enthusiastic ardor; and
her father, amazed at her progress, and perceiving at last the real
bent of her nature, devoted himself seriously to her instruction,
superintending her efforts with the greatest interest and care. He took
her through a serious course of preparatory study, and then sent her to
the Louvre to copy the works of the old masters, as a discipline for
her eye, her hand, and her judgment.
Surrounded and stimulated by the glorious creations of the great
painters--the first to enter the gallery and the last to leave it--too
much absorbed in her model to be conscious of any thing that went on
around her, Rosa pursued her labors with unwavering zeal.
“I have never seen an example of such application, and such ardor for
work,” remarked M. Jousselin, director of the Louvre, in describing the
deportment of the young student.
The splendid coloring and form of the Italian schools, the lofty
idealism of the German, and the broad naturalism of the Dutch, alike
excited her enthusiasm; she studied them all with equal delight,
and copied them with equal felicity. To aid her father in his arduous
struggle for the support of his family, now increased by the birth of
two younger children, was the immediate object of Rosa’s ambition;
and, the admirable fidelity of her copies insuring them a speedy sale,
this filial desire was soon gratified. She gained but a small sum for
each, but so great was her industry that those earnings soon became an
important item in the family resources.
One day, when she had just put the finishing touch to a copy of _Les
Bergers d’Arcadie_, at the Louvre, an elderly English gentleman stopped
beside her easel, and, having examined her work with much attention,
exclaimed, “Your copy, _mon enfant_, is superb, faultless! Persevere as
you have begun, and I prophesy that you will be a great artist!” The
stranger’s prediction gave the young painter much pleasure, and she
went home that evening with her head full of joyous visions of future
success.
Rosa was now in her seventeenth year, vowed to art as the aim and
occupation of her life, cultivating landscape, historical, and genre
painting with equal assiduity, but without any decided preference for
either; when, happening to make a study of a goat, she was so much
enchanted with this new attempt that she thenceforth devoted herself
to the cultivation of the peculiar province in which she has commanded
such brilliant success. Too poor to procure models, she went out daily
into the country on foot, in search of picturesque views and animals
for sketching. With a bit of bread in her pocket, and laden with canvas
and colors, or a mass of clay--for she was attracted equally toward
painting and sculpture, and has shown that she would have succeeded
equally in either--she used to set out very early in the morning, and,
having found a site or a subject to her mind, seat herself on a bank or
under a tree, and work on till dusk; coming home at nightfall, after
a tramp of ten or a dozen miles, browned by sun and wind, soaked with
rain, or covered with mud; exhausted with fatigue, but rejoicing in the
lessons the day had furnished.
Her inability to procure models at home also suggested to her
another expedient, the adoption of which shows how earnest was her
determination to overcome the obstacles poverty had placed in the way
of her studies. The slaughtering and preparing of animals for the
Paris market is confined to a few _abattoirs_, great establishments
on the outskirts of the city, placed under the supervision of the
municipal authorities. Each of these establishments contains extensive
inclosures, in which are penned thousands of lowing and bleating
victims, waiting their turn to be led to the shambles. To one of
these--the _abattoir du Roule_--had Rosa the courage to go daily for
many months, surmounting alike the repugnance which such a locality
naturally inspired, and her equally natural hesitation to place herself
in contact with the crowd of butchers and drovers who filled it. Seated
on a bundle of hay, with her colors beside her, she painted on from
morning till dusk, not unfrequently forgetting the bit of bread in
her pocket, so absorbed would she become in the study of the varied
types that rendered the courts and stables of this establishment
so invaluable a field of observation for her. Not content with
drawing the occupants of the _abattoir_ in their pens, far from the
sickening horror of the shambles, she felt the necessity of studying
their attitudes under the terror and agony of the death-stroke, and
compelled herself to make repeated visits to the slaughter-house;
looking on scenes whose repulsiveness was rendered doubly painful
to her by her affectionate sympathy with the brute creation. In the
evening, on her return home, her hands, face, and clothes were usually
spotted all over by the flies, so numerous wherever animals are
congregated. Such was the respect with which she inspired the rude
companions by whom she was surrounded, and who would often beg to see
her sketches, which they regarded with the most naïve admiration, that
nothing ever occurred to annoy her in the slightest degree during her
long sojourns in the crowded precincts of the _abattoir_.
After she had ceased to visit this establishment, she frequented in
a similar manner the stables of the Veterinary School of Alfort, and
the animals and museums of the Garden of Plants. She also resumed her
sketching rambles in the country, and resorted diligently to all the
horse and cattle fairs held in the neighborhood of Paris. On the latter
occasions she invariably wore male attire; a precaution she found it
necessary to adopt, as a convenience, and still more, as a protection
against the annoyances that would have rendered it impossible for her
to mingle in such gatherings in feminine costume. In her masculine
habit Rosa had so completely the look of a good-hearted, ingenuous
boy, that the graziers and horse-dealers, whose animals she drew,
would frequently insist on “standing treat” in a _chopine_ of wine, or
a _petit verre_ of something stronger, to the “clever little fellow”
whose skillful portrayal of their beasts had so much delighted them;
and it sometimes required all her address and ingenuity to escape
from their well-meant persecutions. Her good looks, too, in the
assumed character of a youth of the sterner sex, would sometimes make
sad havoc in the susceptible hearts of village dairy-maids. Some
laughable incidents might be related under this head. In her subsequent
explorations of the romantic regions at either foot of the Pyrenees,
the passion with which she has unwittingly inspired the black-eyed
Phœbes of the south has more than once proved a source of serious
though comical embarrassment to the artist, desirous above all things
to maintain impenetrably the secret of her disguise.
The young artist’s studies were not confined to the exterior forms of
her models. She procured the best anatomical treatises and plates,
with casts and models of the different parts of the human frame, and
studied them thoroughly; she then procured legs, shoulders, and heads
of animals from the butchers, carefully dissecting them, and thus
obtaining an intimate knowledge of the forms and dependencies of the
muscles whose play she had to delineate.
Now that Rosa has arrived at the fame her swelling child-heart
prophesied to itself before she had ascertained the path that should
lead to the fulfillment of her aspirations, the richest and noblest of
her countrymen are proud to place at her disposal the finest products
of their farms and studs; while mules, donkeys, sheep, goats, pigs,
dogs, and rare poultry are offered to her from one end of Europe to
the other. But it is certain that the poverty and obscurity which,
during her first years of effort, compelled her to frequent _abattoirs_
and cattle-markets in search of subjects for her pencil were really
of unspeakable service in forcing her to make acquaintance with a
multitude of types under a variety of action and condition, such as
she could never have seen in any other way, and in giving her a
breadth of conception, variety of detail, and truthfulness to nature,
which a more limited range of experience could not have supplied.
Through all her varied studies, Raymond Bonheur was his daughter’s
constant and only teacher. M. Léon Cogniet, whose pupil she is
erroneously said to have been, merely took a friendly interest in her
progress, and warmly encouraged her to persevere. She never took a
lesson of any other teacher than her father and nature.
Bonheur, with his family, now occupied small six-story rooms in the
Rue Rumfort. His two sons had also devoted themselves to art under his
auspices, Auguste being a painter, and Isidore a sculptor. The loving
family, merry and hopeful in spite of poverty, labored diligently
together in the same little studio. From daylight till dusk Rosa was
always at her easel, singing like a linnet, the busiest and merriest
of them all. In the evening, the frugal dinner dispatched and the lamp
lighted, she would spend several hours in drawing illustrations for
books, and animals for prints and for albums; or in moulding little
groups of oxen, sheep, etc., for the figure-dealers--thus earning an
additional contribution to the family purse.
Rosa delighted in birds, of which she had many in the studio; but it
grieved her to see them confined. To her great joy, one of her brothers
contrived a net, which he fastened to the outer side of the window,
so that they could be safely let out of their cages. She had also a
beautiful sheep, with long silky wool, the most docile and intelligent
of quadrupeds, which she kept on the leads outside their windows, the
leads forming a terrace, converted by her into a garden, gay with
honeysuckles, cobeas, convolvulus, nasturtiums, and sweet-peas. As the
sheep could not descend six flights of stairs, yet needed occasional
exercise and change of diet, Isidore used to place it gravely on his
shoulders, and carry it down to a neighboring croft, where it browsed
on the fresh grass to its heart’s content, after which he would carry
it back to its aerial residence. Thus carefully tended, the animal
passed two years contentedly on the terrace, affording to Rosa and her
brothers an admirable model.
It was in the Fine Arts Exhibition of 1841 that Rosa Bonheur made her
first appearance before the critical Areopagus of Paris, attracting
the favorable notice both of connoisseurs and public, by two charming
little groups of a goat, sheep, and rabbits. The following year she
exhibited three paintings: “Animals in a Pasture,” “A Cow lying in a
Meadow,” and “A Horse for Sale,” which attracted still more notice, the
first being specially remarkable for its exquisite rendering of the
atmospheric effects of evening, and its blending of poetic sentiment
with bold fidelity to fact.
From this period she appeared in all the Paris exhibitions, and in
many of those of the provincial towns, her reputation rising every
year, and several bronze and silver medals being awarded to her
productions. In 1844 she exhibited, with her paintings, “A Bull” in
clay, one of the many proofs she has given of powers that would have
raised her to a high rank as a sculptor, had she not, at length, been
definitively drawn, by the combined attractions of form and color,
into the ranks of the painters. In the following year she exhibited
twelve paintings--a splendid collection--flanked by the works of her
father and her brother Auguste, then admitted for the first time. In
1846 her productions were accompanied by those of her father and both
her brothers, the younger of whom then first appeared as a sculptor.
The family group was completed in a subsequent exhibition by the
admission of her younger sister, Julietta, who had returned to Paris,
and had also become an artist. In 1849 her magnificent “Cantal Oxen”
took the gold medal. Horace Vernet, president of the committee of
awards, proclaimed the new laureat in presence of a brilliant crowd of
amateurs, presenting her with a superb Sèvres vase in the name of the
government; the value of a triumph which placed her ostensibly in the
highest rank of her profession being immeasurably enhanced in her eyes
by the unbounded delight it afforded to her father.
Raymond Bonheur, released from pecuniary difficulty, and rejuvenated
by the joy of his daughter’s success, had accepted the directorship of
the government school of design for girls, and resumed his palette with
all the ardor of his younger days. But his health had been undermined
by the fatigues and anxieties he had borne so long, and he died of
heart disease in 1849, deeply regretted by his family. Rosa, who had
aided him in the school of design, was now made its directress. She
still holds the post, her sister, Madame Peyrol, being the resident
professor, and Rosa superintending the classes in a weekly lesson.
Her already brilliant reputation was still farther enhanced by the
appearance, in 1849, of her noble “Plowing Scene in the Nivernais,”
ordered by the government, and now in the Luxembourg Gallery; of the
“Horse-market,” in 1853, the preparatory studies for which occupied her
during eighteen months; and the “Hay-making,” in 1855. The last two
works created great enthusiasm in the public mind.
More fortunate than many other great artists, whose merits have been
slowly acknowledged, Rosa Bonheur has been a favorite with the public
from her first appearance. Her vigorous originality, her perfect
mastery of the technicalities and mechanical details of her art, and
the charm of a style at once fresh and simple, and profoundly and
poetically true, ensured for her productions a sympathetic appreciation
and a rapid sale. She had produced, up to June, 1858, thirty-five
paintings; and many more, not exhibited, have been purchased by private
amateurs. In these the peculiar aspect of crag, mountain, valley, and
plain--of trees and herbage; the effects of cloud, mist, and sunshine,
and of different hours of the day--are as profoundly and skillfully
rendered as are the outer forms and inner life of the animals around
which the artist, like nature, spreads the charm and glory of her
landscapes. She has already made a fortune, but has bestowed it
entirely on others, with the exception of a little farm a few miles
from Paris, where she spends a great deal of her time. Such is her
habitual generosity, and so scrupulous is her delicacy in all matters
connected with her art, that it may be doubted whether she will ever
amass any great wealth for herself. Her port-folios contain nearly a
thousand sketches, eagerly coveted by amateurs; but she regards these
as a part of her artistic life, and refuses to part with them on any
terms. A little drawing that accidentally found its way into the hands
of a dealer, a short time since, brought eighty pounds in London.
Rosa had presented it to a charity, as she now and then does with her
drawings. Demands for paintings reach her from every part of the
world; but she refuses all orders not congenial to her talent, valuing
her own probity and dignity above all price.
The award of the jury in 1853--in virtue of which the authoress of
“The Horse-market” was enrolled among the recognized masters of the
brush, and as such exempted from the necessity of submitting her works
to the examining committee previous to their admission to future
exhibitions--entitled her, according to French usage, to the cross of
the Legion of Honor. This decoration was refused to the artist by the
emperor _because she was a woman_!
The refusal, repeated after her brilliant success of 1855, naturally
excited the indignation of her admirers, who could not understand why
an honor that would be accorded to a certain talent in a man should be
refused to the same in a woman. But, though Rosa was included in the
invitation to the state dinner at the Tuileries, always given to the
artists to whom the Academy of Fine Arts has awarded its highest honor,
the refusal of the decoration was maintained, notwithstanding numerous
efforts made to obtain a reversal of the imperial decree.
A visitor describes the studio of this world-renowned artist. At the
southern end of the Rue d’Assas--a retired street, half made up of
extensive gardens, the tops of trees alone visible above the high stone
walls--just where, meeting the Rue de Vaugirard, it widens into an
irregular little square, surrounded by sleepy-looking, old-fashioned
houses, and looked down upon by the shining gray roofs and belfry of
an ancient Carmelite convent--is a green garden-door, surmounted by
the number “32.” A ring will be answered by the barkings of one or two
dogs; and when the door is opened by the sober-suited serving-man, the
visitor finds himself in a garden full of embowering trees. The house,
a long, cozy, irregular building, standing at right angles with the
street, is covered with vines, honeysuckles, and clematis. A part of
the garden is laid out in flower-beds; but the larger portion--fenced
off with a green paling, graveled, and containing several sheds--is
given up to the animals kept by the artist as her models. There may be
seen a horse, a donkey, four or five goats, sheep of different breeds,
ducks, cochinchinas, and other denizens of the barn-yard, all living
together in perfect amity and good-will.
On fine days the artist may be found seated on a rustic chair inside
the paling, busily sketching one of these animals, a wide-awake or
sun-bonnet on her head. If the visitor comes on a Friday afternoon, the
time set apart for Rosa’s receptions, he is ushered through glass doors
into a hall, where the walls are covered with paintings, orange-trees
and oleanders standing in green tubs in the corners, and the floor
(since the artist crossed the Channel!) covered with English oil-cloth.
From this hall a few stairs, covered with thick gray drugget, lead to
the atelier, on Fridays turned into the reception-room.
This beautiful studio, one of the largest and most finely proportioned
in Paris, with its greenish-gray walls, and plain green curtains to
lofty windows that never let in daylight--the room being lighted
entirely from the ceiling--has all its wood-work of dark oak, as are
the book-case, tables, chairs, and other articles of furniture--richly
carved, but otherwise of severe simplicity--distributed about the room.
The walls are covered with paintings, sketches, casts, old armor,
fishing-nets, rude baskets and pouches, poles, gnarled and twisted
vine-branches, picturesque hats, cloaks, and sandals, collected by
the artist in her wanderings among the peasants of various regions;
nondescript draperies, bones and skins of animals, antlers and
horns. The fine old book-case contains as many casts, skeletons, and
curiosities as books, and is surrounded with as many busts, groups in
plaster, shields, and other artistic booty, as its top can accommodate;
and the great Gothic-looking stove at the upper end of the room is
covered in the same way with little casts and bronzes. Paintings of all
sizes, and in every stage of progress, are seen on easels at the lower
end of the room, the artist always working at several at a time. Stands
of port-folios and stacks of canvas line the sides of the studio; birds
are chirping in cages of various dimensions, and a magnificent parrot
eyes you suspiciously from the top of a lofty perch. Scattered over
a floor as bright as waxing can make it, are skins of tigers, oxen,
leopards, and foxes--the only species of floor-covering admitted by
the artist into her workroom. “They give me ideas,” she says of these
favorite appurtenances; “whereas the most costly and luxurious carpet
is suggestive of nothing.”
But the suggestion of picturesque associations is not the only service
rendered by these spoils of the animal kingdom. One sultry Friday
afternoon, one of her admirers, going earlier than her usual reception
hour, found her lying fast asleep under the long table at the upper end
of the studio, on her favorite skin, that of a magnificent ox, with
stuffed head and spreading horns; her head resting lovingly on that of
the animal. She had come in very tired from her weekly review of the
classes at the School of Design, and had thrown herself down on the
skin, under the shade of the table, to rest a few moments. There was so
much natural grace and simplicity in her attitude, such innocence and
peacefulness in her whole aspect, and so much of the startled child in
her expression, as, roused by the opening and shutting of the door, she
awoke and started to her feet, that the picture seemed as beautiful as
any created by the pencil.
Here Rosa Bonheur receives her guests with the frankness, kindness,
and unaffected simplicity for which she is so eminently distinguished.
In person she is small, and rather under the middle height, with
a finely-formed head, and broad rather than high forehead; small,
well-defined, regular features, and good teeth; hazel eyes, very clear
and bright; dark-brown hair, slightly wavy, parted on one side and cut
short in the neck; a compact, shapely figure; hands small and delicate,
and extremely pretty little feet. She dresses very plainly, the only
colors worn by her being black, brown, and gray; and her costume
consists invariably of a close-fitting jacket and skirt of simple
materials. On the rare occasions when she goes into company--for she
accepts very few of the invitations with which she is assailed--she
appears in the same simple costume, of richer materials, with the
addition merely of a lace collar. She wears none of the usual articles
of feminine adornment; they are not in accordance with her thoughts and
occupations. At work she wears a round pinafore or blouse of gray linen
that envelops her from the neck to the feet. She impresses one at first
sight with the idea of a clear, honest, vigorous, independent nature;
abrupt, yet kindly; original, self-centred, and decided, without the
least pretension or conceit; but it is only when you have seen her
conversing earnestly and heartily, her enthusiasm roused by some topic
connected with her art, or with the great humanitary questions of the
day; when you have watched her kindling eyes, her smile at once so
sweet, so beaming, and so keen, her expressive features irradiated,
as it were, with an inner light, that you perceive how very beautiful
she really is. To know how upright and how truthful she is, how
single-minded in her devotion to her art, how simple and unassuming,
fully conscious of the dignity of her artistic power, but respecting it
rather as a talent committed to her keeping than as a quality personal
to herself, you must have been admitted to something more than the
ordinary courtesy of a reception-day. While, if you would know how
noble and how self-sacrificing she has been, not only to every member
of her own family, but to others possessing no claim on her kindness
but such as that kindness gave them, you must learn it from those who
have shared her bounty, for you will never know a word of it from
herself.
Her dislike to being written about will prevent many interesting
particulars in regard to her from becoming known; but, if they ever
come to light, they will show her life replete with noble teachings,
and that the great painter whose fame will go down to coming ages was
as admirable a woman as she was gifted as an artist; that her moral
worth was no less transcendent than her genius.
Rosa Bonheur is an indefatigable worker. She rises at six, and paints
until dusk, when she lays aside her blouse, puts on a bonnet and
shawl of most unfashionable appearance, and takes a turn through the
neighboring streets alone, or accompanied only by a favorite dog.
Absorbed in her own thoughts, and unconscious of every thing around
her, the first conception of a picture is often struck out by her in
these rapid, solitary walks in the twilight.
Living solely for her art, she has gladly resigned the cares of her
outward existence to an old and devoted friend, Madame Micas, a widow
lady, who, with her daughter, resides with her. Mademoiselle Micas
is an artist, and her beautiful groups of birds are well known in
England. She has been for many years Rosa’s most intimate companion.
Every summer the two artists repair to some mountain district to
sketch. Arrived at the regions inhabited only by the chamois, they
exchange their feminine habiliments for masculine attire, and spend
a couple of months in exploring the wildest recesses of the hills,
courting the acquaintance of their shy and swift-footed tenants, and
harvesting “effects” of storm, rain, and vapor as assiduously as those
of sunshine. Though Rosa is alive to the beauties of wood and meadow,
mountain scenery is her especial delight. Having explored the French
chains and the Pyrenees, in the autumn of 1856 she visited Scotland,
and made numerous sketches in the neighborhood of Glenfallock, Glencoe,
and Ballaculish. Struck by the beauty of the Highland cattle, she
selected some choice specimens of these, which she had sent down to
Wexham Rectory, near Windsor, where she resided, and spent two months
in making numerous studies, from which she produced two pictures:
“The Denizens of the Mountains” and “Morning in the Highlands.” Her
preference for the stern, the abrupt, and the majestic over the soft,
the smiling, and the fair, makes Italy, with all its glories, less
attractive to her than the ruder magnificence of the Pyrenees and the
north.
Among mountains the great artist is completely in her element; out of
doors from morning till night, lodging in the humblest and remotest of
road-side hotels, or in the huts of wood-cutters, charcoal-burners,
and chamois-hunters, and living contentedly on whatever fare can be
obtained. In 1856, being furnished by families of distinction in the
Béarnais and the Basque provinces with introductions, her party pushed
their adventurous wanderings to the little station of Peyronère, the
last inhabited point within the French frontier, and thence up the
romantic defiles of the Vallée d’Urdos, across the summit of the
Pyrenees. Their letters procured them a hospitable reception at each
halting-place, with a trusty guide for the next march. In this way they
crossed the mountains, and gained the lonely _posada_ of Canfan, the
first on the Spanish side of the ridge, where, for six weeks, they saw
no one but the muleteers with their strings of mules, who would halt
for the night at the little inn, setting out at the earliest dawn for
their descent of the mountains.
The people of the _posada_ lived entirely on curdled sheep’s milk,
the sole article of food the party could obtain on their arrival.
At one time, by an early fall of snow, they were shut out from all
communication with the valley. Their threatened starvation was averted
by the exertions of Mademoiselle Micas, who managed to procure a
quantity of frogs, the hind legs of which she enveloped in leaves,
and toasted on sticks over a fire on the hearth. On these frogs they
lived for two days, when the hostess was induced to attempt the
making of butter from the milk of her sheep, and even to allow the
conversion of one of these animals into mutton for their benefit. Their
larder thus supplied, and black bread being brought for them by the
muleteers from a village a long way off, they gave themselves up to
the pleasures of their wild life and the business of sketching. The
arrival of the muleteers, in their embroidered shirts, pointed hats,
velvet jackets, leathern breeches, and sandals, was always a welcome
event. Rosa paid for wine for them, and they, in return, performed
their national dances for her, after which they would throw themselves
down for the night upon sheepskins before the fire, furnishing subjects
for many picturesque _croquis_. As the _posada_ was a police-station,
established there as a terror to smugglers, the little party felt
perfectly safe, notwithstanding its loneliness.
Rosa was much pleased with her Scotch tour. She brought away a
wonderful little Skye terrier, named “Wasp,” of the purest breed,
and remarkably intelligent, which she holds in great affection. She
has learned for its benefit several English phrases, to which “Wasp”
responds with appreciative waggings of the tail.
Rosa Bonheur has avowed her determination never to marry. Determined
to devote her life to her favorite art, she may be expected to produce
a long line of noble works that will worthily maintain her present
reputation; while the virtues and excellences of her private character
will win for her an ever-widening circle of admiration and respect.