Central High School - Snips and Cuts Yearbook (Charlotte, NC)

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Rosa Bonbeur ARIE ROSA BONHEUR was a French Artist, born in Bordeaux, France, on October 22, 1822. She was deemed the most eminent woman painter of animals. Her father Raymond Bonheur, who was a draw- ing teacher, gave Rosa, the eldest of four children, care- ful training at an early age, but it was mainly her own study of animals in their natural environments that devel- oped her genius. The family moved to Paris when Rosa Bonheur was eleven years old, and here she copied industriously in the Louvre and the Luxembourg, and also studied from nature. The studio in Rue Rumford, where the family lived, has been described as a kind of Noah's Ark. Birds, hens, ducks, sheep and dogs shared the appartments, and every day Mademoiselle's Bonheur's two brothers took the quad- rupeds down six flights of stairs and out to pasture. At the age of nineteen, Mademoiselle Bonheur first exhibited at the Salon a picture of Rabbits Eating Carrots. Thereafter, until 1855, she was represented annually in the exhibition. In 1845, she received a gold medal of the third class, and in 1848 a first class medal. Her first great picture, deemed by some her best, Plough- ing in N ivernais, was exhibited in 1849, and was bought for the Luxembourg. Meanwhile the studio in the Rue Rumford had been given up, and the artist was studying at Abattoirs on the outskirts of Paris. Finding the attentions of the work- men disagreeable, she adopted trousers, and as she had short hair, fshel easily passed for a man. In 1849, on the death of her brother, Raymond, she assumed charge of a school of drawing for young ladies, which he had been directing. In 1853, she exhibited the famous Horse Fair, which attracted wide-spread admiration. She offered it to her native town of Bordeaux for 12,000 francs, but the offer was not accepted. It was sold afterward in 13

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H is for holidays, halves and whole. Whose coming We joyfully do behold. O's for the oflicers of the Senior class, Quite fit to preside o'er eacn lad and lass. O stands for obstructions which We all have met But all, I am sorry, have not conquered yet. L's for the loss of golden times, And also the end of these simple rhymes. MARY DUNN Ross 12

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England for 40,000 francs, and exhibited there and later in America. It was finally purchased by Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt for 555,500 The artist made a replica a quar- ter size of the original, from which the engravings of the picture were taken. This replica is in the National Gal- lery in London, painted in a water color. Rosa Bonheur bought a Gothic Chateau at By, near Fontainebleau, and in 1850 went there to live. Here in 1864, Napoleon III, and the Empress Eugenie visited her studio. The Empress requested the Cross of the Legion of Honor for her, but there was opposition on the ground that the decoration had never been given to a woman except for some deed of bravery and charity, so the Em- peror with-held it. The next year, however, while he was in Algeria, the Empress who was Regent in his place, visited Mademoiselle Bonheur and conferred the Cross. During the latter part of her life, she lived quietly at By. She died May 25, 1899. As a painter she showed a sound and wholesome feeling for nature, not only in the modeling of her animals and in her spirit-representation of action, but also in the truthful landscape setting in which she placed her subjects. This is notable in the Ploughing in Nivernais, in which the sky and up- turned earth are rendered with great truth of relative values. Among her best known paintings are: The Haymaking Season in Auveranej' C1865Dg On the Alert, A Combat Between Two Stallions. In the Metropolitan Museum of Arts in New York is her Deer in the Forest, and in Lenox Library is her Deer Drinking. PAULINE WILLIAMS, '13. iff Wig 14