621. THE HORSE FAIR.
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.