OEUVRE: ROSA’S PICTURESQUE FARM
Rest assured: this is not an article written for an American newspaper with the intention of promoting feminism. As proof, all you need to do is to have a look at Rosa Bonheur’s sumptuous creations and hold your breath! How can an artist produce such astonishing works and then get totally forgotten?
Born in 1822 in southwestern France’s Bordeaux region, known for its excellent wines but also for its vast green pastures full of farm animals, Bonheur was encouraged by her father who had noticed her artistic tendencies at a very early age.
She would resist temptations to paint portraits or scenes of households with people sitting on sofas drinking coffee, chatting or having dinner next to grand fireplaces — a style that was in vogue in the 19th century. Instead, her magical world would have images of horses, cows, sheep and other farm animals.
An extraordinarily dynamic woman painter stunned the art world in the 19th century. Does she still have admirers of her art?
Bonheur repeatedly won prizes as a teenager in major art festivals of France. In 1848, at age 26, she was paid three thousand francs, a very high price in the mid-19th century, for her painting Ploughing in Nivernais Farm that can still be seen in the Musée d’Orsay of Paris.
International recognition came to Bonheur in 1853 when she made The Horse Fair in which the animals look alive and ready to jump out of the canvas any moment. Even rival art critics of the day agreed that the painting was “above and beyond all polemics over romantic or classical categories” that had remained the principal point of disagreement among them. The painting was sold at a mind-boggling price of 40,000 francs, unheard of at that time. The success brought international fame to Rosa Bonheur and the solicitations to visit many European countries would include a personal invitation by Queen Victoria of England. The stupendous chef d’oeuvre can be seen today at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
She also moved to Scotland where she drew sketches for many of her works including Highland Shepherd, finished in 1859, and A Scottish Raid soon after.