women in art, part six: realist painter rosa bonheur - art is wild at heart

briefly

Rosa Bonheur was born in Bordeaux, France but trained in Paris under the guidance of her painter father Raymond Bonheur. She is considered a premiere animalière (animal painter) and was a leading figure in the mid-19th century French realism movement - realism was the antithesis to the romantic movement (romanticism) which championed subjectivity; the realists attempted to depict the subject as they appear or act in life.

Even before she bacame a professional painter, Bonheur's favorite subject or theme was animals. She worked hard to study their anatomy by going to local slaughterhouses to observe and dissect specimens or frequenting the horse market - activities considered bold and daring for a woman. So great was her passion for her profession that she even asked the government to allow her to cross-dress or dress up like a man for more freedom of movement. They granted her request. Eventually, this and the fact that she did not marry stirred up talks about a certain possibility. But Bonheur's 'wild' ways only proved incidental, if not beneficial, and never disapproving to her talent. A talent that brought her fame and riches, from Europe to America.

Bonheur's most popular works include the Paris Salon-winning Ploughing on the Nivernais, 1849 (see below), The Horse Fair, 1855 (see below) and her portrait of William Frederick Cody, (see below) more famously known as Buffalo Bill.

timeline

• 1822 - Marie-Rosalie Bonheur was born on March 15 in Bordeaux, France to Raimond Oscar Bonheur and Sophie Marquis
  

• 1828 - Bonheur moved with her family to Paris
  

• 1832 - Bonheur's father abandoned his family to join the Saint Simeons, a utopian society
  

• 1833 - Bonheur's mother died
  

• 1836 - Bonheur started copying images from paintings at the Louvre
  

• 1841 - Bonheur started exhibiting regularly at the annual Paris Salon
  

• 1848 - Bonheur won a gold medal from the Paris Salon
  

• 1849 - Bonheur was commissioned to paint the Ploughing on the Nivernais by the French government
  

• 1860 - Bonheur acquired a chateu at the Fontainebleu Forest
  

• 1865 - Bonheur received a visit from Empress Eugénie who bestowed the artist the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. Bonheur was the first woman recipient of the recognition
  

• 1889 - Bonheur's long-time companion Nathalie Micas died
  

• 1893 - Bonheur met American portraitist Anna Klumpke
  

• 1895 - Bonheur went to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois
  

• 1898 - Bonheur and Klumpke signed a living arrangement
  

• 1899 - Bonheur died on May 25
  

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she said

"The epithets of imbeciles have never bothered me."

"To his doctrines I owe my great and glorious ambition for the sex to which I proudly belong and whose independence I shall defend until my dying day."

"I strongly blame women, who renounce their customary attire in the desire to make they pass for men."

"I have no patience with women who ask permission to think."

"My father...many times reiterated to me that woman's mission was to elevate the human race..."

*on why she didn't marry

"I preferred to preserve my name."

*on her manner of dressing

"But the suit I wear is my work attire, and nothing else."

"I was forced to recognize that the clothing of my sex was a constant bother. That is why I decided to solicit the authorization to wear men's clothing from the prefect of police."

"Remember that at a certain period I spent whole days in the slaughterhouses. Indeed, you have to love your art in order to live in pools of blood...I had no alternative but to realize that the garments of my own sex were a total nuisance...the costume I am wearing is my working outfit, nothing else."

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