Bonheur, Sheep in the Highlands
About this video
At the Wallace Collection, Steven Zucker and Beth Harris look at Rosa Bonheur's Sheep, noting its remarkable light, detailed landscape and close observation of nature. They discuss how hard it was for a 19th-century woman to become a professional artist, and how Bonheur's supportive family of artists helped her succeed.
You'll be able to
- describe how Bonheur observes light and detail in nature.
- explain the obstacles women artists faced in the 19th century.
- explain why family support mattered so much for Bonheur's career.
Key words
- Pre-Raphaelite
- A group of 19th-century British artists known for very detailed, close observation of nature.
- academic formula
- A standard, rule-based way of painting taught by the official art academies.
- amateur
- Someone who does an activity for pleasure, not as a paid professional.
- pastoral
- Showing calm, peaceful countryside life, often with animals.
Transcript
(piano music playing) Steven: We're in the Wallace Collection and we're looking at a Rosa Bonheur. This is called Sheep and it's on a wall with lots of other paintings, but we both noticed how it just really stands out.
Beth: It really does. The effect of real light in this landscape is remarkable and you know, she was an animal painter, but the landscape is also really, pretty fabulous.
Steven: And It's a complicated landscape. You have rain in a couple of areas then light coming through and what I find so incredibly complex is the way the light plays on the fur of the sheep, as well as the brush and the grass in the foreground. It's so complicated. It's a sense of minute
Beth: Yes. Beth: It almost, in some ways, reminds me of a pre-Raphaelite painting in its attention to detail and actually observing nature instead of a kind of academic formula.
Steven: When you look at the paintings of women of the 19th century, we so often see domestic scenes, but here she is out in nature.
Beth: And it wasn't easy for her to do that.
Steven: No, not at all. I mean, this is relatively a pastoral scene, but nevertheless her paintings really do show animals in a much more aggressive way.
Beth: We know that Rosa Bonheur, obviously, wasn't easy for her as a woman to be a professional artist and in fact, in order to sort of be out in the fields and painting animals, it was much more efficient and comfortable to wear pants which she actually
Steven: That's right, I remember that. Yes. to wear pants like so many women who became successful artists her family included male artists, so that's how she would have learned how to paint because, of course, women could not just simply go to art school.
Steven: It was accepted for women to dabble in painting. They certainly could take private lessons, but it was at the level of amateur and Rosa Bonheur has really transcended that and become a professional, which was an extremely rare and somewhat provocative thing to do.
Beth: And she had the support of her family. Her family was very progressive in that way and really encouraged her and her father was a painter, her siblings were painters and her mother encouraged her to draw.
Steven: If I remember correctly, she ended up being quite successful financially. I think she had a very strong reputation, although it was a narrow reputation, again, as an animal painter.
Beth: You know, when you see such a beautiful painting like this by a woman artist, it's impossible not to think about all the women who didn't have that support of their family, who could have become great painters and didn't. (piano music playing)
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