[MUSIC PLAYING] BETH HARRIS: We're
in the Musee d'Orsay and we're looking at Rosa
Bonheur's light-filled painting called "Plowing
in the Nivernais." STEVEN ZUCKER: That refers to
both the region, and the kind of oxen that are the
stars of this canvas. BETH HARRIS: They are. The human figure that pushes
them along is hardly important. STEVEN ZUCKER: So Rosa Bonheur
did some extraordinary things. She was an incredibly
precocious girl. I think it was at age
14, she was actually sketching in the Louvre,
and actually creating oil paintings. This was possible because
her father was an artist and had really encouraged her. I think they were very liberal. BETH HARRIS: Otherwise,
she would not have had her enormous
artistic talent encouraged. She might not have ended
up a painter at all. STEVEN ZUCKER: So
this was made in 1849, which is just one year
after the revolution. And, it's so interesting
that an artist, now, is moving out into
the countryside, away from all of the
chaos of the city. BETH HARRIS: Where the
revolution happened. STEVEN ZUCKER: I mean, we
have this incredible image of these oxen turning
the soil in the fall to prepare for the
following year's season. And look at the soil
itself, you almost get a sense that here is
the strength of France. BETH HARRIS: The earth looks
incredibly rich and fertile. So there is a sense of a
kind of nationalistic idea of the French countryside,
and that France will survive, and indeed thrive. STEVEN ZUCKER: And those
oxygen are so powerful and so beautiful, and
in a sense, So eternal. This is a ritual
that has gone on long before the politics
of the modern world. BETH HARRIS: And will
continue long after. They come forward in
a receding diagonal that moves into our space. So we have this sense of depth,
and atmospheric perspective, and sense of weather, the
warmth of the sunlight. It's so particularly
and carefully observed. And it reminds me of so much
that we see in the 1840s and then into the 1850s. Of this interest in
rural life, of laborers, of the virtues of
the countryside. STEVEN ZUCKER: Now, when
I look at this, the oxen, those backs are so
beautifully aligned, they almost create their
own horizon, like the hills beside them. And so, in a sense, they
are the Earth itself. There is the sense
of permanence. I think throughout
the 1840s, especially with the kind of
industrialization and growth of the cities
that's taking place, there is this real
desire to return to this much more basic truth. BETH HARRIS: Which resides in
nature and the countryside. STEVEN ZUCKER: And
in labor itself. But a kind of simple,
very direct kind of labor. BETH HARRIS: So do you think
Rosa Bonheur is giving us a conservative
vision at this moment just after a very
radical revolution of 1848, that brings the
working class into power in a significant way? STEVEN ZUCKER: I think that
there are conservative aspects here, but it's more
complicated than that. She's breaking too
many boundaries. She is emphasizing the
importance of landscape, of animal painting itself,
on a scale that is often reserved for history painting. She is a woman, not
painting miniatures, not painting as
an amateur, but as painting at the level of
the highest professional. These are radical
ideas, and I don't think we can see this as
conservative painting. BETH HARRIS: And really
remarkable accomplishments. [MUSIC PLAYING]