DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.57154#0034
XXVIII
ROSA BONHEUR
be produced before her, but that her faithful companion, her pencil, just
as rapid, took note. In her excursions, wherever chance led her, she displayed
the same quickness of observation, felt the same joy in proving to herself that
work only needs to be aided by will.
Her strong studies in osteology, in anatomy, enabled her to unclothe the
animal so to speak from his skin and flesh, and, in the beasts that she loved
to represent, one devines a structure more than correct, expressive. Then
there is the study of the eye, study that she pursued for more than sixty
years and which permitted her to really penetrate the soul of beasts, to
imprint upon their faces the expression proper for them to wear. This may
seem childish ; on the contrary, I believe that one of the most original merits
of Rosa Bonheur is to have known how to give to her four-legged models
their own psychology.
Many animal-painters, and not the least important, carrying the discussion
of thought among animals up to paradox, have not hesitated to portray in
human manner, human sentiments among beasts; others, realists of con-
trary doctrine, have believed instinct synonymous with brutishness and, in
the depths of the eyes they were to illumine, they found but a lustreless
look.
Rosa Bonheur has done better; she did not linger on the precise sense
of the words soul or instinct, nor would she have wished to give thereupon
her opinion, but she knew; between her and the animals that she studied,
looks were exchanged, she understood : she read the thoughts under the fore-
heads of different characteristics, of different moods, of conquered liberty;
she penetrated the secret of their joys and anguish, of their soothing and
disquietude, of their caressing trust, of their ferocious angers; here, she noted
characters marked by obediance, by discipline, by domesticity; there, the
crafty and the ill-natured, close by, majesty having as safeguard force. In
contrast with the thousand comedies of human life, Rosa Bonheur observed
the thousand dramas of animal life, she beheld the evident manifestation of
passions really lofty, of devotion capable of inspiring generous emotion and
she arrived at the conclusion that if pain, among animals, does not equal
in its physical source the pain of man, the tears that animals shed are, at
least, a means of expression which commands respect even from the most
hard-hearted. This is why, in her works, the physiognomies given by her to
ROSA BONHEUR
be produced before her, but that her faithful companion, her pencil, just
as rapid, took note. In her excursions, wherever chance led her, she displayed
the same quickness of observation, felt the same joy in proving to herself that
work only needs to be aided by will.
Her strong studies in osteology, in anatomy, enabled her to unclothe the
animal so to speak from his skin and flesh, and, in the beasts that she loved
to represent, one devines a structure more than correct, expressive. Then
there is the study of the eye, study that she pursued for more than sixty
years and which permitted her to really penetrate the soul of beasts, to
imprint upon their faces the expression proper for them to wear. This may
seem childish ; on the contrary, I believe that one of the most original merits
of Rosa Bonheur is to have known how to give to her four-legged models
their own psychology.
Many animal-painters, and not the least important, carrying the discussion
of thought among animals up to paradox, have not hesitated to portray in
human manner, human sentiments among beasts; others, realists of con-
trary doctrine, have believed instinct synonymous with brutishness and, in
the depths of the eyes they were to illumine, they found but a lustreless
look.
Rosa Bonheur has done better; she did not linger on the precise sense
of the words soul or instinct, nor would she have wished to give thereupon
her opinion, but she knew; between her and the animals that she studied,
looks were exchanged, she understood : she read the thoughts under the fore-
heads of different characteristics, of different moods, of conquered liberty;
she penetrated the secret of their joys and anguish, of their soothing and
disquietude, of their caressing trust, of their ferocious angers; here, she noted
characters marked by obediance, by discipline, by domesticity; there, the
crafty and the ill-natured, close by, majesty having as safeguard force. In
contrast with the thousand comedies of human life, Rosa Bonheur observed
the thousand dramas of animal life, she beheld the evident manifestation of
passions really lofty, of devotion capable of inspiring generous emotion and
she arrived at the conclusion that if pain, among animals, does not equal
in its physical source the pain of man, the tears that animals shed are, at
least, a means of expression which commands respect even from the most
hard-hearted. This is why, in her works, the physiognomies given by her to
