THE GIRLHOOD OF ROSA BONHEUR.
By Sarah K. Bolton
THE greatest woman painter of the world furnishes an example of privations overcome that would have discouraged any ordinary person. Her father was a struggling artist, giving drawing-lessons, while his wife gave lessons on the piano from house to house, sewing late into the night to help provide for their children. Poverty and hard work killed the young mother, and the three oldest children were put with a plain woman, while the youngest was sheltered by relatives. Rosa did not love school, but would roam for whole days in the fields and come home with her arms full of daisies and marigolds. As she did not love books, the father, plainly seeing that she must needs support herself, found a place for her with a sewing woman. The child was well-nigh broken-hearted; she disliked the close sewing-room more even than the close school-room. She longed for the flowers and sunshine, made her fingers bleed from the hated needles, and grew so ill that her poor father took her home again and put her in school. Very sensitive—as what poet or painter ever was born otherwise?—she cried herself sick because her shoes were coarse, her dress of calico, her cup tin, with an iron spoon, while many wore silk, had silver mugs, and looked refined and artistic. Well-nigh discouraged, the father took Rosa home again and let her hang about his studio, busying herself just as she chose. He observed that she modeled and copied whatever she saw him do, and sang at her work the whole day long. Finally he awoke to the fact that the little girl who hated the stitching had wonderful talent. He began to teach her carefully in drawing; he sent her to the Louvre to copy from the old masters. She worked with an ardor and persistency almost unheard of. Finally an elderly English gentleman said to her, "Your copy, my child, is faultless. Persevere as you have begun, and I prophesy that you will be a great artist." These words put new life into her breast. She went home thinking the same thoughts she had in school when she ate with the iron spoon—that sometime she would be as famous as her school-mates and have some of the comforts of life. She sold the copies she made, and gave the money to her father, who meantime had married a widow with two children, and now a baby had come into the home. To support a wife and seven children would take quite all the talented father and daughter might earn. Rosa was now seventeen. She had painted a goat, and was so pleased that she determined to make animals a specialty. But, as she had no money, she must go into the country on foot to the farms. Would not the people be amazed at a slight girl coming alone to paint? She never asked. She had a distinct purpose, and nothing could swerve her from it; nobody could consume her time with idle talk or social calls. She usually took a piece of bread in her pocket to eat at the dinner hour, but often forgot to eat it. Often she came home drenched by the rain, but she had painted, and that was happiness enough. But she must use other means to study animals. She would go to the great slaughter-pens just outside Paris. So tender-hearted that she could not bear to see the slightest insect hurt, she forced herself to see the killing that she might know how to depict the death agony on canvas. As she sat on a bundle of hay with her colors about her, the drovers and butchers would crowd near, but no insult was ever offered her. They soon became proud of the enthusiastic girl, and probably would have killed any person who would have harmed her. After the hard work of the day was over, Rosa would illustrate books at night or model little groups of animals for the figure dealers. Her two brothers, Auguste and Isadore, had become, the one a painter and the other a sculptor. Poor as they were, they improvised a sort of garden on their roof, where they kept a sheep with long silky wool, and the boys made for Rosa's birds a net into which they could fly from their cage. Very often Isadore would carry the sheep down on his back from the sixth story, where they lived, to the ground below, and then bring him home again to the topmost story. At nineteen Rosa was to test the great world. She sent two pictures to the fine-art exhibition, "Goats" and "Rabbits," and the press gave kind notices. The next year three pictures attracted more attention. Two years later she exhibited twelve pictures. Then, in 1849, when she was twenty-seven, and had worked constantly for over a dozen years, the time of triumph came. Her great picture "Cantal Oxen" took the gold medal, and was purchased by England. Vernet, the president of the commission of awards, in the midst of a proud assemblage proclaimed the new laureate and gave her a superb Sèvres vase from the Government. The young artist was profoundly thankful, but the poor father was overwhelmed with joy. He was made a director in a Government school, but the release from poverty and unremitting labor came too late, and he died soon after, and Rosa was made director in his stead. Orders now poured in upon the young artist from every side. Four years later her "Horse Fair" was painted, after a year and a half spent in preparatory studies. It was purchased by A. T. Stewart, of New York, and last year was given by Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the one picture being worth over fifty thousand dollars. For this picture Napoleon III. was asked to bestow upon her the cross of the Legion of Honor, but he hesitated because she was a woman. Eugénie, however, had more courage; and when she visited Rosa Bonheur at her beautiful studio at Fontainebleau threw her arms about her neck and kissed her; after the empress departed the artist found pinned upon her breast the cross of the Legion of Honor. She received the Leopold cross of honor from the king of Belgium, said to be the first ever conferred upon a woman. Her brother Auguste, now dead, received the French honor two years after Rosa. She gives away much of her very large income. She dresses simply, always wearing black, brown, or gray, with a close-fitting jacket over a plain skirt. Her working dress is a long gray linen or blue flannel blouse. She is small, with a noble and intelligent face, and is an indefatigable worker. She says: "Art is an absorbent. It demands heart, brain, soul, body, the entireness of the votary; nothing less will win its highest favor. I wed art; it is my husband, my world, my life-dream, the air I breathe." When Prussia conquered France, orders were given that Rosa's home and paintings should be carefully preserved. Thus does the world honor genius. Henry Bacon, the artist, says of her home: "Behind the house is a large park divided from the forest by a high wall; a lawn and flower-beds are laid out near the buildings, and on the lawn, in pleasant weather, graze a magnificent bull and cow, which are kept as models. In a wire inclosure are two chamois from the Pyrenees, and farther removed from the house, in the wooded part of the park, are inclosures for sheep and deer, each of which knows its mistress. Even the stag bearing its six-branched antlers receives her caresses like a dog. . . . The studio is decorated with stuffed heads of animals of various kinds—boars, bears, wolves, and oxen—and birds perch in every convenient place."