Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1899-03-09
HOW ROSA 8oNHEuR DEVELOPED IN
TO A GREAT ARTIST

woman can do in art.
In the summer of 1929 and for several
summers after a wild little girl played
about the wood of the Bots de Boulogne
at Paris. The child was extremely ac-
tive and quick, with eyes that saw
everything and hair cut short like
boys She had been christened Marie
Rosa, and she was the motherless daugh-
ter of a gifted but poor and struggling
artist named Raymond Bonheur. Rosa
was the eldest of four, and her father
sent her to school daily He supposed
she went
Instead of going to school. however,
the girl played truant day after day. She
ran at will through the paths of the
Bots, plucking flowers and chasing birds
and butterflies. Again she would lie for
hours upon the grass, listening to the
birds and gazing into the shining, blue
sky. wondering how far away it was
and what the birds said
Sometimes she wondered, too, if her
father or anybody else could paint just
as they were the color of the sky and
trees the bright, soft eyes and shining
coats of the horses and sheep that passed
the wood. The little girl grew strong
| lunged and strong limbed thus running
wild in the Bots de Boulogne, but it
must be confessed she was very idle.
At length came day when her truant
playing was discovered. ''Fie, fiel
Mile Rosa. you shocking child, you
must learn something useful and that
at once, if you will not studyl'
She was apprenticed taa dressmaker.
Fancy Rosa Bonheur, needle and scis
sors in hand. cutting and shipping
waist Innings!
She endured it fortnight. then her
face grew pale and her short little nose
became sharp and pinched. Plainly this
would never do. So to school the girl
went again another school, where her
father Taught drawing to pay for her
education She took no interest in her
lessons except the drawing class her ia
Their taught Here she was easily first
But she would not study. 1t was hope
less She played so many pranks on
teachers and schoolmates that she was
a most inconvenient pupil
! Once she made set of caricatures of
the whole school, from the principal
down, and hung them from the ceiling
of the schoolroom. She was discovered
and sentenced to solitary confinement
on bread and water for time But the
caricatures were so good that the prin
cipal, whose sense of humor had not
been wholly crushed out by years of
sehoolteaching. preserved them and
made merry over them with her friends
Other difficulties arose. Girls and wo-
men are too often cruel to each other
and the other pupils snubbed Rosa and
looked down upon her because she was
poor. Think of that again-Rosa Bon
heur snubbed and not thought fit COM
pany for the daughters of rich trades
menl She must have remembered that
in after years when the empress of
France tripped into her studio one day
and, all stained with paints and oils as
the artist garments were. threw her
arms about her neck. kissed her and
pinned upon her breast the cross and
ribbon of the Legion of Honor.
But no visions of that time came TO
comfort the sad heart Of the child wom-
an who was snubbed by her schoolmates
because she was poor. 1t cut her to the
soul, and the merry hearted. wild little
maid who had run about the Boulogne
wood became morose and soured and
Stunned the society of all. What could
be sadder for a schoolgirl, all because
| Of the cruelty of girls who were richer
At length Raymond Bonheur took his
| daughter home and vowed she should
be tormented with school no more. She
had all along shown decided artistic
bent, and her father now decided to lei
! her follow it Himself would be her in
structor. Two brothers and a sister of
Rosa Bonheur distinguished themse've;
also in art, and it is the boast Of tn
whole family that they never had any
teacher but their father
Rosa was born at Bordeaux March
%. 1922. but her father came to Paris
when his four children were small Al
the time Rosa left school his first wife
was dead, and he was married second
time to a lady who was faithful
mother to the young Bonheurs,
And now at last Rosa found her
calling. She wrought at it early and
late. When it became too dark to dis
tinguish colors she modelled in clay by
lamplight Indeed for several years it
was about an even chance whether she
should be sculptor or painter Her IA
Their reveled in great floods of light in
his pictures As ne loved light so she
loved light and color, too, and this pas
sionate love of beautiful tints at length
decided her to be painter
Meantime she worked on through
rain, snow and sunshine from the time
she was 10 for five years. During these
years she copied from the works of art
in the Louvre. No toiler ever wrought
more faithfully. no one ever deserved
success more richly. In this way she
studied till she was perhaps H. It had
not yet occurred to her what field of art
she would adopt Her father was a
thoroughly strict teacher and would not
permit her to exhibit any crude work
to the public
One day while bordering on the field
| u arr SHE SnOulu cultivate Sn6 suddenly
remembered the wild joy she used to
feel in the long, beautiful days in the
Bots de Boulogne. She started up in
stantly. Il viii take nature for my
fieldl'' she exclaimed
At once she bent all her powers to
furthering this resolve. Up at dawn,
carrying her paint box and little
lunch she went out to study nature
Over hill and valley, by forest and
stream, she Travelled day after day All
day long she remained out getting
mud covered and wet to the skin at
times. At times she was hungry and
weary, but the true artist soul never
knew it In the toughest of weathers,
and among the toughest of people occa-
sionally. Rosa Bonheur learned her beau
tiful art
By and by she developed a peculiar
love of animals. and an aptitude for
painting them came to her 1t was al
ways the human quality in animals
that attracted Rosa to the sheep, the
cows. the horses and even the lions
The striking popularity in the work of
this great artist was the sentiment and