Rosa Bonheur
''Rosa Bonheur'' by François Crastre is a biography published in the early 20th century that chronicles the life of Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899), a pioneering French artist celebrated for her animal paintings. The book details her journey from a young girl in a modest artistic family in Bordeaux to becoming one of the most renowned painters of her time, overcoming societal barriers in a male-dominated art world. It highlights her significant works, such as ''The Horse Fair'' and ''Ploughing in the Nivernais,'' as well as her personal relationships, particularly with her partner Nathalie Micas. This biography emphasizes Bonheur's resilience and innovation in 19th-century art.
Editions
X-Ray
“she understood the types and the species that her brush reproduced, she was able, through an instinct of extraordinary precision, to endow them, one and all, with precisely the glance and the psychic intensity that belongs to them. She takes the animals in the environment in which they live, in the setting with which their form harmonizes, in short, in the conditions that have played an essential part in their evolution, and she records with inflexible sincerity what nature places beneath her eyes and what her patient study has permitted her to understand. It is more especially for this reason, among many others, that the work of Rosa Bonheur deserves to live, and that the eminent artist stands to-day as one of the most finished animal painters with which the history of our national art is honoured.””
— François Crastre
“PLATE VIII.”
— François Crastre
“honesty in art depends upon line-work.” Few painters have so far insisted upon this honesty, this conscientiousness, without which the most gifted artist remains incomplete.””
— François Crastre
