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.