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Course: Europe 1800 - 1900 > Unit 5
Lesson 2: Realism- A beginner's guide to Realism
- Courbet, The Stonebreakers
- Courbet, A Burial at Ornans, 1849-50
- Gustave Courbet, A Burial at Ornans
- Courbet, The Artist's Studio, a real allegory summing up seven years of my artistic and moral life
- Courbet, The Artist's Studio, a real allegory summing up seven years of my artistic and moral life
- Courbet, Bonjour Monsieur Courbet
- Bonheur, Plowing in the Nivernais
- Bonheur, Sheep in the Highlands
- Millet, L'Angelus
- Millet, The Gleaners
- Manet, Music in the Tuileries Gardens
- Édouard Manet, Olympia
- Manet, Olympia
- Manet's Olympia
- Manet, Le déjeuner sur l'herbe
- Manet, The Railway
- Manet, The Railway
- Manet, Émile Zola
- Manet, The Balcony
- Manet, Plum Brandy
- Manet, In the Conservatory
- Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
- Manet, Corner of a Café-Concert
- Eva Gonzalès, A Loge at the Théâtre des Italiens
- Daumier, Rue Transnonain
- Honoré Daumier, Nadar Elevating Photography to the Height of an Art
- Realism
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Bonheur, Sheep in the Highlands
Rosa Bonheur, Sheep in the Highlands, 1857, oil on canvas, 46 x 65 cm (Wallace Collection, London) Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Steven Zucker The Wallace Collection suggests that this painting is likely the result of a trip that the artist made to Scotland the previous year. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- I found the remark in the end somewhat odd. Sure, by looking at a painting by a woman you may think of all the women who didn't get supported by their families and thus couldn't develop their talents, but this isn't a gender specific issue. There are and were also many men who weren't encouraged to develop their artistic side. Of course, let's not forget about the 99% of families who don't even have the means to support the artistic ambitions of their children, even if they wanted to.(11 votes)
- True, but I don't think that is being entirely fair. There is a reason that we never saw a female Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, etc... and I don't believe that it is just because females didn't have the financial means or patrons. The role of women in society was very much one of a domestic "servant" essentially or even in the case of royalty the woman was still at best a figure head of the state, but certainly not free to pursue a life of their choosing...art or otherwise.(12 votes)
- It's interesting that she notes the Pre-Raphaelites at0:54because as soon as I saw this painting I thought of William Holman Hunt's "Our English Coasts". Did Bonheur associate with the Pre-Raphaelites at any point in her life?
Here's a link to "Our English Coasts":
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-history/art-history-1848-1907-industrial-revolution-ii/pre-raphaelites/v/william-holman-hunt--our-english-coasts---strayed-sheep----1852(4 votes)- In 1953 Rosa Bonheur had a huge success on the Parigian Salon with a monumental piece "The Horse Fair". The painting was bought by a Belgian-born English art dealer Ernest Gambart (1814-1902), who immediately ordered Bonheur to come to England, where he promised her great financial success. In 1855 she traveled of to London, where her "Horse Fair" was exhibited by Gambart in his gallery at Pall Mall. Gambart between brackets was also a publisher and had the most skilled graveurs of Europe on his payroll, who's job it was to make engravings for mass-production of famous artworks and works by the artists Gambart represented. From 1855 so it went also for Rosa Bonheur. In this way she quickly managed to recieve international European and American recognition. Financial success was indeed greater in England than in France, partly because of the mass consumption of high quality reproductions of her artworks for which she got a percentage; partly because of the English public that appreciated her Victorian Style.
We could talk about how she got invited by Queen Victoria I who was a big fan, but...
Now here's the deal: This Ernest Gambart had a great deal of young aspiring English artists under his wings. Namedropping is essential, William Holman Hunt... pause... and John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti and even the second wave of Pre-Rafaelites like Ford Madox-Brown. After living the high life for a while as a London-superstar, having a broad range of artistic influences but instinctly drawn to the PRB, she underwent a trip (financed by whom other than, Gambart) to the Scottisch Highlands. There she saw the land that (in her own words) made her realise the intense naturalism and nature of the Pre-Refaelites, whom she met and observed closely the weeks before. She made a lot of sketches (also oil-paint sketches) and drawings, from whom this (and other) painting is a result.
Hope this helps!(5 votes)
- What is Bonheur's full name?And How did she get the painting "Sheep in the Highlands" look so real with the light colors?Who were Bonheur's parents and family? Where can you find the beautiful and artistic painting?If it so rare in Bonheur's time for women to achieve the goal to be a proffesional painter,how did she do it?(3 votes)
- She had to do all that to wear pants?(4 votes)
- A lot of time there is hidden meaning in a painting. Any guesses on this one?(1 vote)
- Actually, here is an interesting fact about Rosa Bonheur. She had trouble learning to read as a child. Her mother encouraged her to draw animals to go along with each letter of the alphabet. Her father was a landscape painter and her other siblings were painters. I guess she stayed on the same path with the animals.(5 votes)
- What is the painting at0:47?(1 vote)
- Does anyone else think these pictures have a hidden meaning or is that just me? I think these pictures are beautiful by the way(1 vote)
- whatever meaning the artist intended, whether overt or hidden, is of little consequence compared to the meaning you, yourself, put into the painting when you view it. This is not the constitution or a religious text, the original meaning is of no consequence. What does it mean to you today? That may very well be different to what it may mean to you next year, or what it did last year.(2 votes)
- Is this painting supposed to represent freedom?(1 vote)
- It may represent that, OR, being of sheep, may represent mindless following of authority to being taxed (fleeced) or slaughtered.(1 vote)
- It's interesting that she notes the Pre-Raphaelites at0:54because as soon as I saw this painting I thought of William Holman Hunt's "Our English Coasts". Did Bonheur associate with the Pre-Raphaelites at any point in her life?
Here's a link to "Our English Coasts":
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-history/art-history-1848-1907-industrial-revolution-ii/pre-raphaelites/v/william-holman-hunt--our-english-coasts---strayed-sheep----1852(1 vote)
Video 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)