Women artists in all ages and countries

by E. F. Ellet

A visitor describes the studio of this world-renowned artist. At the southern end of the Rue d’Assas—a retired street, half made up of extensive gardens, the tops of trees alone visible above the high stone walls—just where, meeting the Rue de Vaugirard, it widens into an irregular little square, surrounded by sleepy-looking, old-fashioned houses, and looked down upon by the shining gray roofs and belfry of an ancient Carmelite convent—is a green garden-door, surmounted by the number “32.” A ring will be answered by the barkings of one or two dogs; and when the door is opened by the sober-suited serving-man, the visitor finds himself in a garden full of embowering trees. The house, a long, cozy, irregular building, standing at right angles with the street, is covered with vines, honeysuckles, and clematis. A part of the garden is laid out in flower-beds; but the larger portion—fenced off with a green paling, graveled, and containing several sheds—is given up to the animals kept by the artist as her models. There may be seen a horse, a donkey, four or five goats, sheep of different breeds, ducks, cochinchinas, and other denizens of the barn-yard, all living together in perfect amity and good-will.

On fine days the artist may be found seated on a rustic chair inside the paling, busily sketching one of these animals, a wide-awake or sun-bonnet on her head. If the visitor comes on a Friday afternoon, the time set apart for Rosa’s receptions, he is ushered through glass doors into a hall, where the walls are covered with paintings, orange-trees and oleanders standing in green tubs in the corners, and the floor (since the artist crossed the Channel!) covered with English oil-cloth. From this hall a few stairs, covered with thick gray drugget, lead to the atelier, on Fridays turned into the reception-room.

This beautiful studio, one of the largest and most finely proportioned in Paris, with its greenish-gray walls, and plain green curtains to lofty windows that never let in daylight—the room being lighted entirely from the ceiling—has all its wood-work of dark oak, as are the book-case, tables, chairs, and other articles of furniture—richly carved, but otherwise of severe simplicity—distributed about the room. The walls are covered with paintings, sketches, casts, old armor, fishing-nets, rude baskets and pouches, poles, gnarled and twisted vine-branches, picturesque hats, cloaks, and sandals, collected by the artist in her wanderings among the peasants of various regions; nondescript draperies, bones and skins of animals, antlers and horns. The fine old book-case contains as many casts, skeletons, and curiosities as books, and is surrounded with as many busts, groups in plaster, shields, and other artistic booty, as its top can accommodate; and the great Gothic-looking stove at the upper end of the room is covered in the same way with little casts and bronzes. Paintings of all sizes, and in every stage of progress, are seen on easels at the lower end of the room, the artist always working at several at a time. Stands of port-folios and stacks of canvas line the sides of the studio; birds are chirping in cages of various dimensions, and a magnificent parrot eyes you suspiciously from the top of a lofty perch. Scattered over a floor as bright as waxing can make it, are skins of tigers, oxen, leopards, and foxes—the only species of floor-covering admitted by the artist into her workroom. “They give me ideas,” she says of these favorite appurtenances; “whereas the most costly and luxurious carpet is suggestive of nothing.”

But the suggestion of picturesque associations is not the only service rendered by these spoils of the animal kingdom. One sultry Friday afternoon, one of her admirers, going earlier than her usual reception hour, found her lying fast asleep under the long table at the upper end of the studio, on her favorite skin, that of a magnificent ox, with stuffed head and spreading horns; her head resting lovingly on that of the animal. She had come in very tired from her weekly review of the classes at the School of Design, and had thrown herself down on the skin, under the shade of the table, to rest a few moments. There was so much natural grace and simplicity in her attitude, such innocence and peacefulness in her whole aspect, and so much of the startled child in her expression, as, roused by the opening and shutting of the door, she awoke and started to her feet, that the picture seemed as beautiful as any created by the pencil.

Here Rosa Bonheur receives her guests with the frankness, kindness, and unaffected simplicity for which she is so eminently distinguished. In person she is small, and rather under the middle height, with a finely-formed head, and broad rather than high forehead; small, well-defined, regular features, and good teeth; hazel eyes, very clear and bright; dark-brown hair, slightly wavy, parted on one side and cut short in the neck; a compact, shapely figure; hands small and delicate, and extremely pretty little feet. She dresses very plainly, the only colors worn by her being black, brown, and gray; and her costume consists invariably of a close-fitting jacket and skirt of simple materials. On the rare occasions when she goes into company—for she accepts very few of the invitations with which she is assailed—she appears in the same simple costume, of richer materials, with the addition merely of a lace collar. She wears none of the usual articles of feminine adornment; they are not in accordance with her thoughts and occupations. At work she wears a round pinafore or blouse of gray linen that envelops her from the neck to the feet. She impresses one at first sight with the idea of a clear, honest, vigorous, independent nature; abrupt, yet kindly; original, self-centred, and decided, without the least pretension or conceit; but it is only when you have seen her conversing earnestly and heartily, her enthusiasm roused by some topic connected with her art, or with the great humanitary questions of the day; when you have watched her kindling eyes, her smile at once so sweet, so beaming, and so keen, her expressive features irradiated, as it were, with an inner light, that you perceive how very beautiful she really is. To know how upright and how truthful she is, how single-minded in her devotion to her art, how simple and unassuming, fully conscious of the dignity of her artistic power, but respecting it rather as a talent committed to her keeping than as a quality personal to herself, you must have been admitted to something more than the ordinary courtesy of a reception-day. While, if you would know how noble and how self-sacrificing she has been, not only to every member of her own family, but to others possessing no claim on her kindness but such as that kindness gave them, you must learn it from those who have shared her bounty, for you will never know a word of it from herself.

Her dislike to being written about will prevent many interesting particulars in regard to her from becoming known; but, if they ever come to light, they will show her life replete with noble teachings, and that the great painter whose fame will go down to coming ages was as admirable a woman as she was gifted as an artist; that her moral worth was no less transcendent than her genius.

Rosa Bonheur is an indefatigable worker. She rises at six, and paints until dusk, when she lays aside her blouse, puts on a bonnet and shawl of most unfashionable appearance, and takes a turn through the neighboring streets alone, or accompanied only by a favorite dog. Absorbed in her own thoughts, and unconscious of every thing around her, the first conception of a picture is often struck out by her in these rapid, solitary walks in the twilight.

Living solely for her art, she has gladly resigned the cares of her outward existence to an old and devoted friend, Madame Micas, a widow lady, who, with her daughter, resides with her. Mademoiselle Micas is an artist, and her beautiful groups of birds are well known in England. She has been for many years Rosa’s most intimate companion. Every summer the two artists repair to some mountain district to sketch. Arrived at the regions inhabited only by the chamois, they exchange their feminine habiliments for masculine attire, and spend a couple of months in exploring the wildest recesses of the hills, courting the acquaintance of their shy and swift-footed tenants, and harvesting “effects” of storm, rain, and vapor as assiduously as those of sunshine. Though Rosa is alive to the beauties of wood and meadow, mountain scenery is her especial delight. Having explored the French chains and the Pyrenees, in the autumn of 1856 she visited Scotland, and made numerous sketches in the neighborhood of Glenfallock, Glencoe, and Ballaculish. Struck by the beauty of the Highland cattle, she selected some choice specimens of these, which she had sent down to Wexham Rectory, near Windsor, where she resided, and spent two months in making numerous studies, from which she produced two pictures: “The Denizens of the Mountains” and “Morning in the Highlands.” Her preference for the stern, the abrupt, and the majestic over the soft, the smiling, and the fair, makes Italy, with all its glories, less attractive to her than the ruder magnificence of the Pyrenees and the north.

Among mountains the great artist is completely in her element; out of doors from morning till night, lodging in the humblest and remotest of road-side hotels, or in the huts of wood-cutters, charcoal-burners, and chamois-hunters, and living contentedly on whatever fare can be obtained. In 1856, being furnished by families of distinction in the Béarnais and the Basque provinces with introductions, her party pushed their adventurous wanderings to the little station of Peyronère, the last inhabited point within the French frontier, and thence up the romantic defiles of the Vallée d’Urdos, across the summit of the Pyrenees. Their letters procured them a hospitable reception at each halting-place, with a trusty guide for the next march. In this way they crossed the mountains, and gained the lonely posada of Canfan, the first on the Spanish side of the ridge, where, for six weeks, they saw no one but the muleteers with their strings of mules, who would halt for the night at the little inn, setting out at the earliest dawn for their descent of the mountains.

The people of the posada lived entirely on curdled sheep’s milk, the sole article of food the party could obtain on their arrival. At one time, by an early fall of snow, they were shut out from all communication with the valley. Their threatened starvation was averted by the exertions of Mademoiselle Micas, who managed to procure a quantity of frogs, the hind legs of which she enveloped in leaves, and toasted on sticks over a fire on the hearth. On these frogs they lived for two days, when the hostess was induced to attempt the making of butter from the milk of her sheep, and even to allow the conversion of one of these animals into mutton for their benefit. Their larder thus supplied, and black bread being brought for them by the muleteers from a village a long way off, they gave themselves up to the pleasures of their wild life and the business of sketching. The arrival of the muleteers, in their embroidered shirts, pointed hats, velvet jackets, leathern breeches, and sandals, was always a welcome event. Rosa paid for wine for them, and they, in return, performed their national dances for her, after which they would throw themselves down for the night upon sheepskins before the fire, furnishing subjects for many picturesque croquis. As the posada was a police-station, established there as a terror to smugglers, the little party felt perfectly safe, notwithstanding its loneliness.