Artist Rosa Bonheur starred in France & UK. Now a Musée d’Orsay exhibition!

Rosa Bonheur's Château de By
is becoming Musée de l'atelier Rosa Bonheur

Credit: patrice-besse

Rosa Bonheur (1822–1899), born in rural Bordeaux, soon moved with her family to Paris. But her father left his wife and 4 children to live with a Ch­ristian utopian sect which promoted the equality of women and work­ers. Bonheur’s mother taught piano and sew­ing to earn money, but died when Rosa was young. The fam­ily strug­g­led so artist-dad Raymond came home. He strongly urged Rosa to be indep­endence in her art career.

Note the timing. Bonheur began sketching farm anim­als before primary school! From her days in a squishy Bordeaux flat, she assembled a small zoo, exer­cised in the local park. Later in Paris, she got perm­ission to regularly sketch in a city abattoir. So her animals really looked alive, almost with their stink coming off the canvas.

Her personal art preferences luckily synch­ronised with France’s contemp­orary style. With the rise of the bourg­eoi­sie instead of a cultivated arist­ocracy, smaller paint­ings of every-day sub­jects rather than grand myth­ological or relig­ious scenes, were in demand! Art­ists looking for quick financial sec­urity turned to landscapes and animal paintings! Bonheur was already a master!

She continued her art education as a teenager, copying paintings at the Lou­vre with dad and studying living animal anatomy. At 19 she ex­hibited paint­ings of rabbits, goats and sheep at the 1841 Paris Sal­on, not att­racting enough att­ention. But the young artist had est­ab­lished her­self in French culture by 1845. See a lively landscape with farm an­im­als, Ploughing in Nivernais/Nevers (1849), for example.   

                               

Bonheur, Ploughing in the Nivernais,

1849, Wiki

An upcom­ing exhibition at Musée d'Or­say Paris will be the first full show dedicated to Bon­heur. See for example an early Bonheur master­piece Ploughing that show­ed two teams of ox­en turning the soil one autumn afternoon. The animals were mon­umental, yet each muscle showed the precision of a biol­ogy diagram. Kathryn Hughes wrote that the scene was bat­h­ed in a light just like C17th Dutch art, especially Bonheur’s favourite animalier, Dutchman Paulus Potter (1625–54). But I still prefer Bonheur.

This trailblazing French woman became the darling of the English art scene. She spent her days in abattoirs and fields studying her an­imals, and by her early 30s, she had become famous over the Channel. Her trip to England allowed Rosa to meet the President of the Royal Academy & other British notables including John Ruskin & animalier Edwin Landseer. Even Queen Vict­oria attend­ed a pri­vate view­ing of the equestrian scene during Rosa’s visit.

The Horse Fair (1852-55), in Metropolitan Museum of Art, is Bonheur’s best-known painting. Prais­ed as one of the world’s greatest animal pict­ure, it was reprod­uced and sold as a print across Britain. Her pastoral pict­ur­es eg The Highland Shepherd­ (1859) often depicted shepherds and farmers wearing old working clothes.

                            
Bonheur, The Horse Fair (1852-5)
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bonheur became the first woman to win France’s Legion of Honour in 1865, pres­ent­ed by Na­poleon III’s wife Empress Eug­énie who understood that genius had no gender. Her successes meant that Bonheur could fin­anc­ial­ly supp­ort herself and the women she loved eg her partner Nathalie Micas for 40+ years.

Remember Linda Nochlin’s 1971 essay Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? Nochlin acknowledged Bonheur’s great tal­ent by pointing out the relevant cir­cum­stances, renewing attention on Bonheur, 70+ years after her death. Nochlin regarded Bonheur’s relationship with Micas as a companionable, platonic union. This arr­an­ge­ment for wonderful for women who, pre-contr­ac­ept­ion, wished to avoid the burden of childcare. Later writers desc­rib­ed the artist’s relat­ion­ship with Micas as gay, and also emphasised Bon­heur’s ties to artist-lover Anna Klumpke (1856–1942).

The Franco-Prussian war (1870–1), siege, Commune and a shared sen­se of powerlessness encouraged Rosa to thin­k­ about fierce animal predators. Lions and tigers ob­sessed her, even though she saw that these powerful, majestic creatures had the potential to destroy na­ture. In 1872, she painted Couching Lion, show­ing a majes­t­ic cat re­clining against a steep backdrop, head raised.

By the mid-1870s, Bonheur’s creat­ivity drew wide­spread int­er­est. Powerful cats now became Rosa’s main purpose but she was still anxious about lions. Rosa knew she could calm a raging bull and pac­ify a start­led pony. But Algerian lions were un­familiar; she had no experience of how lions reacted. Caged lions could be readily ob­ser­v­ed, but that would been unacceptable. So with her friend Nath­al­ie, Rosa agreed to visit Château de Saint-Leu. Cour­ageous Nathalie’s mar­ched up to the free-roaming lioness and ran her hand along the creature’s back. No problem; Rosa was awestruck. From then on, trips to Saint-Leu permitted Rosa to study the lioness’s un­ique physical and temperamental design.

Bonheur, Sheep by the Sea, 1865
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Wash DC

In her life, Bonheur’s realistic paintings of hor­ses, oxen, lions and other animals won widespread fame. Even after her death in 1899, the French artist, her sketches & prepar­at­ory drawings sold for an unprec­ed­ented price. But her work fell out of favour in her homeland with the rise of Impres­sionism, Abstract Art and art photography. Of course Bon­heur still ded­icated her life to her career, living by her own rules, dressing in men’s clothes, smoking cigars, living with fe­m­ale partners and by in­sist­ing on indep­en­dence. Sadly she has only enjoyed a resurgence of attention recently.

Lawyer Katherine Brault bought Bon­heur’s chateau in 2017 and is convert­ing it in­to the Musée de l'atelier Rosa Bonheur, with substantial Fren­ch govern­ment fin­ancial supp­ort. In the meantime the famous Musée d’Or­say will host an exh­ib­ition of Bon­heur’s seen and unseen works during Oct 2022-Jan 2023. See Bon­heur’s hidden sides eg her passion for opera. 

                                

Portrait of Rosa Bonheur by Anna Klumpke
1898, Metrop Museum of Art,
Wiki