_Rosa Bonheur_ (French: 1822-1899).
Mdlle. Rosalie Bonheur, usually called Rosa Bonheur, the most
vigorous and spirited of French animal painters, was born at
Bordeaux. Her parents had a sharp struggle for existence. Her
mother taught music; her father--Raymond Bonheur--drawing. He
was a painter of some ability, and all the children inherited
an artistic bent. When the family removed to Paris, Rosa's
precocious talents rapidly developed. They lived next door
to a tavern which was a house of call for diligences and
market-waggons, and there she found inexhaustible material
for animal studies. Her brother, Auguste, became an animal
and landscape painter of repute; another brother, Isidore,
an animal sculptor; her sister, Juliette, who married M.
Peyrol, was also a well-known painter. In the Salon of 1848
the whole family exhibited. From the common purse, when they
were children, a goat was bought for a model, which they used
to carry up to their humble studio. Another place of study
with Rosa Bonheur was the Abattoir du Roule, "where, with
characteristic fortitude, she not only controlled her natural
repugnance to scenes of slaughter, but overcame all the disgust
which attended the 'brutalité grossière' of the people employed
there. Even at this early period she studied not only the
outward aspects and anatomical construction of the creatures
she painted, but their passions and tempers. Among the friends
to whom she always referred with grateful pleasure as helpful
in these days was Paul Delaroche, who called at the humble
family quarters on a sixth floor, and was not sparing in his
admiration." Rosa had first been apprenticed to a dressmaker,
but her love of art impelled her to give up this occupation,
and she succeeded in contributing to the family exchequer by
the sale of copies made in the Louvre. In 1841, when only 19,
she exhibited two pictures in the Salon. Her mother died in
1833, and in 1845 her father married again; from that time
forward she lived an independent life. Her famous "Labourage
Nivernais," now in the Luxembourg, was painted in 1848. This
greatly increased her reputation, and she was able to secure
for her father the post of director of the Women's Painting
School, established by the Government in Paris. His death
in the following year affected her greatly, and she did not
exhibit again until 1853, when "The Horse Fair," _Le Marché
aux Chevaux_, appeared. Through engravings and photographs
this work made the name of Rosa Bonheur famous throughout the
world. She visited Spain and Scotland, and painted pictures of
both those countries. Her permanent residence was an estate
at By in the forest of Fontainebleau, which she purchased in
1855. There ten years later she was personally invested by the
Emperor of the French with the Cross of the Legion of Honour,
an honour confirmed in later years by President Carnot. A
still higher compliment was paid her in 1870-1871, when her
studio and residence were spared from any intrusion, by the
special order of Prince Frederick Charles. For many years she
regularly attended horse fairs both in France--such as she has
here depicted--and abroad, adopting as a rule men's costume in
order to carry out her studies and purchases without attracting
attention. Mr. Frith relates how when he and Sir John Millais
went to lunch with her in 1858, they were met at the station by
a carriage, the coachman appearing to be a French Abbé. "The
driver wore a black broad-brimmed hat and black cloak, long
white hair with a cheery rosy face. It was Rosa Bonheur, who
lives at her château with a lady companion, and others in the
form of boars, lions, and deer, who serve as models." Gambart,
who was of the party, "repeated to her some words of praise
given by Landseer to a picture of hers, then exhibiting in
London. Her eyes filled with tears as she listened." "When one
sees this young artist," wrote a journalist in 1852, "small of
stature and of delicate appearance, standing by a huge canvas,
he would be tempted to think that her powers had not attained
the full height of their ambition; but when he comes to make
note of the straight, resolute lines of the artist's features,
her full square forehead, her thick hair, cut as short as that
of a man, and her dark, quick flashing eyes, he ceases to
fear. He then realises that it is not reckless audacity which
impels her forward in her work, but a greatness of soul and a
consciousness of her strength." "Few artistic careers," says
her brother-in-law, "have been more active, more brilliant, or
more characterised by simple and quiet dignity, or perhaps, on
the whole, more happy. Having known during her youngest days
the terrible inconvenience of poverty, Rosa Bonheur raised
herself, by her talent alone, to a position of independence
and fortune. She was privileged to enjoy at the same time
the charms of fame and the sweets of obscurity." She never
abandoned the retired habits of life she loved, and she was
able to continue her studies to the end.
"The magnificent stallions with their powerful forms pass before us
at a trot, kicking up the dust under their feet. Full of life and
movement, and thoroughly imbued with realism, but of a beautiful and
noble realism. The composition is admirable, and brings out finely the
energy and spirit of the horse. The scene represents the horses as
having just reached the market, and as being in the act of falling back
to re-form for their proper places. The fine trees in the background
of the picture, under which, upon a rising ground, the dealers and
buyers take up their position, are obscured on the left by the haze,
and by the clouds of dust raised by the trotting horses; in the
background, too, at the extreme left, is seen the small dome of the
Salpêtrière. The _Marché aux Chevaux_ of Paris was at that time situate
in the Boulevard l'Hôpital, not far from the Orleans railway; but in
consequence of changes, the market has lost the picturesque aspect it
wore in 1853. One looks in vain now for the large trees which then
shadowed it, and the bold earth, covered in places by short dusty
grass and broken up by the trampling of the horses.... A mingling of
art and truth is very obvious in 'The Horse Fair.' The irregular order
of the horses, their different movements bringing into play all their
muscles; the different spots of their coats, so disposed as to set off
one another, and furnishing at the same time a charming variety to the
eye; the powerful dappled Perche horses, which pass in the foreground
and constitute the centre of the picture, with the groups of black[154]
and white horses which rear themselves up on their hind feet--all this
shows a profoundly skilful arrangement, and results in a grand and
harmonious _ensemble_. Yet the first impression which this picture
gives is that of a scene taken from the life, and of intense realism.
The freedom and breadth of the execution are equal to the beauty of
the composition. The vigorous touch, and the powerful drawing also
help to give this picture a spirited character and masculine vigour in
perfect harmony with the subject it represents" (René Peyrol in the
_Art Annual_ on Rosa Bonheur). Ruskin, while bearing his testimony to
the artist's power, calls attention to "one stern fact concerning art"
which here detracts from her full success. "No painter of animals ever
yet was entirely great, who shrank from painting the human face; and
Mdlle. Bonheur _does_ shrink from it.... In the 'Horse Fair,' the human
faces are nearly all dexterously, but disagreeably, hidden, and the one
clearly shown has not the slightest character. Mdlle. Bonheur may rely
upon this, that if she cannot paint a man's face, she can neither paint
a horse's, a dog's, nor a bull's. There is in every animal's eye a dim
image and gleam of humanity, a flash of strange light through which
their life looks out and up to our great mystery of command over them,
and claims the fellowship of the creature, if not of the soul.[155]
I assure Mdlle. Bonheur, strange as the words may sound to her, after
what she has been told by huntsmen and racers, she has never painted a
horse yet. She has only painted trotting bodies of horses" (_Academy
Notes, etc._ 1858, p. 32).
The original of this famous composition--probably the best-known and
most popular animal picture of our epoch--was exhibited in the Salon
in 1853. The painter had been engaged on it for a long time, and had
made innumerable studies for it. She used to call it "her Parthenon
Frieze." It was sold to Mr. Gambart, the picture-dealer, who brought it
to England. It made a great sensation in London, and afterwards went
on a provincial tour. It then travelled to America where it was sold,
and is now in the New York Museum. Rosa Bonheur painted for Gambart two
repetitions of it on a smaller scale. One of these, the picture before
us, was bought by Mr. Jacob Bell, who bequeathed it to the nation in
1859. It was the first work by a living foreign painter to be admitted
to the Gallery.