Rosa Bonheur

Rosa Bonheur - Forest of Fontainebleau. Spring in the Woods
1860-1865
Private Collection

I hadn't expected to find a landscape by Rosa Bonheur at the exhibition hosted by the Washington National Gallery. I knew her as an animalière artist. A year ago I had seen one of the most famous of her works, the Horse Fair, full of energy. Here, in the Spring in the Woods, the energy was kept close, but you were feeling this energy in the trees, ready to break the chains. It was a mood in this painting, and the rustle of the spring was in the mood.

Rosa Bonheur - Le marché aux chevaux
1853 - 1855
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rosa Bonheur - Le labourage nivernais, le sombrage
1848
Musée d'Orsay

(In the Forest of Fontainebleau - from Corot to Monet)

(The Moderns)