“In 1845,” Rosa Bonheur herself relates, “the recipients had to go in person to obtain their medals at the director’s office. I went, armed with all the courage of my twenty-three years. The director of fine-arts complimented me and presented the medal in the name of the king. Imagine his stupefaction when I replied: ‘I beg of you, Monsieur, to thank the king on my behalf, and be so kind as to add that I shall try to do better another time.’”
Rosa Bonheur kept her word: her whole life was a long and sustained effort to “do better.” After the Salon of 1846, where she was represented by five remarkable exhibits, she paid a visit to Auvergne, where she was able to study a breed of cattle very different from any that she had hitherto seen and painted: superb animals of massive build, with compact bodies, short and powerful legs, and wide-spread nostrils. The sheep and horses also had a characteristic physiognomy that was strongly marked and noted with scrupulous care, and enabled her to reappear in the Salon of 1847 with new types that gathered crowds around her canvases, to stare in wonderment at these animals which were so obviously different from those which academic convention was in the habit of showing them.
The general public admired, and so did the critics. It was only the jury that remained hostile towards this independent and personal manner of painting, which ignored the established procedure of the schools and based itself wholly upon inspiration and sincerity; accordingly, they always took pains to place her pictures in obscure corners or at inaccessible heights. The public, however, which always finds its way to what it likes, took pains on its part to discover and enjoy them.
In 1848 Rosa Bonheur had her revenge. The recently proclaimed Republic, wishing to show its generosity towards artists, decreed that all works offered that year to the Salon should without exception be received. As to the awards, they were to be determined by a jury from which the official and administrative element was to be henceforth banished. The judges were Léon Cogniet, Ingres, Delacroix, Horace Vernet, Decamps, Robert-Fleury, Ary Scheffer, Meissonier, Corot, Paul Delaroche, Jules Dupré, Isabey, Drolling, Flandrin, and Roqueplan.
Rosa Bonheur exhibited six paintings and two pieces of sculpture. The paintings comprised: Oxen and Bulls (Cantal Breed), Sheep in a Pasture, Salers Oxen Grazing, a Running Dog (Vendée breed), The Miller Walking, An Ox. The two bronzes represented a Bull and a Sheep.
Her success was complete. Judged by her peers, in the absence of academic prejudice, she obtained a medal of the first class.
This year an event took place in her domestic life. As a result of recent remarriage, her father had a son, Germain Bonheur. The house had become too small for the now enlarged family; besides, the crying of the child, and the constant coming and going necessitated by the care that it required seriously interfered with Rosa’s work. Accordingly she left her home in the Rue Rumford and took a studio in the Rue de l’Ouest. She was accompanied by Mlle. Micas, the old-time friend of her childhood, whom she had rediscovered, and who from this time forth attached herself to Rosa with a devotion surpassing that of a sister, and almost like that of a mother. She also was an artist and took a studio adjoining that of her friend; several times she collaborated on Rosa’s canvases, when the latter was over-burdened with work. After Rosa had sketched her landscape and blocked in her animals, Mlle. Micas would carry the work forward, and Rosa, coming after her, would add the finishing touch of her vigorous and unfaltering brush. But to Rosa Bonheur Mlle. Micas meant far more as a friend than as a collaborator. With a devoted and touching tenderness she watched over the material welfare of the great artist, who was by nature quite indifferent to the material things of life. It was the good and faithful Nathalie who supervised Rosa’s meals and repaired her garments. She was also a good counsellor, and on many different occasions Rosa Bonheur paid tribute to the intelligence and devotion of her friend.
PLATE IV.—PLOUGHING IN THE NIVERNAIS
(Luxembourg Museum)
This painting shows the artist in the full possession of her vigorous and unfaltering talent. The Luxembourg is to-day proud of the possession of such a masterpiece. It testifies to Rosa Bonheur’s equal eminence as an animal painter and a painter of landscapes.