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(Download PDF) Art Is A Tyrant The Unconventional Life of Rosa Bonheur Catherine Hewitt Online Ebook All Chapter PDF
(Download PDF) Art Is A Tyrant The Unconventional Life of Rosa Bonheur Catherine Hewitt Online Ebook All Chapter PDF
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Contents
Title Page
Epigraph
Prologue
1. Two Houses
2. Where Angels Fear
3. Hear the People
4. Trying for Size
5. Beasts and Benefactors
6. True Nature
7. Life and Death
8. Cometh the Hour
9. Changing Views
10. A Woman’s Work
11. Beyond the Sea
12. The Lady of the Lakes
13. Such Stuff as Dreams
14. Pure Invention
15. All That Glitters
16. Gathering Storms
17. Knowing the Enemy
18. Standing Out from the Pack
19. The Call of the Wild
20. Mastering the Moon
21. A Question of Pride
22. The Price of Fame
23. The Final Awakening
24. Against the Odds
25. Four Loves
26. Signing a Life
Epilogue
Afterword
Acknowledgements
Select Bibliography
Index
Plates
Copyright
‘Art is an absorbent – a tyrant. It demands heart, brain, soul, body, the
entireness of its votary. Nothing less will win its highest favour. I wed
art. It is my husband – my world – my life-dream – the air I breathe. I
know nothing else – feel nothing else – think nothing else.’
—Rosa Bonheur
Prologue
T
he temperature had dropped on 25 October 1899 as Parisians,
their outer garments pulled tight, made their way up and down
the tree-lined Boulevard de la Madeleine. Beyond the bustling
flower market, in the shadow of the majestic Église, horse-drawn
carriages rumbled past attendant omnibuses and the occasional
cyclist. The roar of a motorcar was not an uncommon feature of
boulevard life these days, and heads would turn as a member of
the elite paraded their affluence. But pedestrians still
outnumbered vehicles. Men accessorised with top hats and canes
went about their business, while long skirts swished to and fro as
women circulated between the boulevard’s grand apartment
buildings and shops. The younger, more fashion-conscious fin-de-
siècle ladies chose dresses to accentuate the waist. So far did
contemporary fashion go, critics objected, that women had
become veritable ‘packets’, no longer voluptuous beacons of
fertility but prisoners in their own bodices. But whatever her
stance on the trends of the day, every woman could be glad that,
today at least, the autumnal drop in temperature had not also
obliged her to carry an unwieldy umbrella as well as her usual
bags or parcels.
Leaving the boulevard’s cacophony of voices, hooves and
carriage wheels, the narrower, tangential Rue de Sèze offered a
reprieve for a person more accustomed to a quieter way of life.
Presently, a woman could be seen making her way along the
macadam of this side street. Her curious appearance invited a
second look. Though hardly more than 40, in her left hand she
gripped a cane and the sharp-eyed observer would notice that she
walked with a limp. Notwithstanding, she carried herself well and
her undulating mane of wiry, chestnut brown hair had been drawn
back into a loose bun. The chignon rested behind an oval face
with a high forehead, full lips and pale blue eyes which would
become animated if she smiled. And despite a nose which was a
little too prominent for her face, no one who passed her could
doubt her femininity.
The outward signs of frailty were deceptive; she was a resilient
American and she possessed titanic inner strength. She needed
that quality now.
The American stopped before the door of the building at
number 8. The meeting she was about to attend filled her with
trepidation. There was certain to be conflict, dispute and
heartrending emotion. But she had a delicate task to perform; she
had made a promise. A force more powerful than she had brought
her here.
The woman instigating this meeting was, quite simply, unique –
the very antithesis of 19th-century society’s feminine ideal. She
was educated, she shunned traditionally ‘feminine’ pursuits, she
rejected marriage and she wore trousers. Though her origins were
modest, her aspirations were grand. Problematically for a 19th-
century female, she was determined to paint. Dismissing society’s
prejudice, bearing the cruellest forms of ridicule, she had
persevered in her craft and gone on to win medals,
commendations and become the first woman ever to be made
Officier de la Légion d’Honneur. Her company was sought by kings
and courtiers, celebrities and statesmen. She dined and debated
with John Ruskin, she talked thoroughbreds with Buffalo Bill, her
work was summoned by Queen Victoria and she was decorated by
the Empress Eugénie of France, Emperor Maximilian of Mexico and
King Alphonso XII of Spain. She kept lions and monkeys in her
home, she rode her horse resolutely astride and was often
mistaken for a man. But exceptionally, the society whose gendered
rules she spurned accepted her – because by the mid-19th
century, this woman was perhaps the greatest painter of animals
France had ever seen.
And around her persona lingered tantalising questions: was she
really descended from royalty? How many taboos would she
violate for love? Most of all, why would a woman so devoted to
family give her entire fortune to an outsider?
Of one thing at least the American was certain: such greatness
must be protected. The promise had to be kept. Her story must be
told.
The door of number 8, Rue de Sèze swung open. Bracing
herself, the American stepped inside.
1
Two Houses
W
hen she arrived at the Mairie of Bordeaux on 21 May 1821,
Sophie Marquis had cause for apprehension. She was about
to do something radical.
Fine-boned with dark hair and eyes, a delicate nose and even
features, at 24, Sophie was a pretty girl. She was bright and
accomplished, and had received an education fitting for a lady of
her station. She was well read, spoke competent Spanish, and
could sing and dance beautifully. Her piano playing held audiences
enraptured. Any lingering recollection of her first two years in her
native Germany had now been subsumed by a library of memories
of life in France with her adoptive father, M. Dublan de Lahet, and
his family.1
Jean-Baptiste Dublan de Lahet was well qualified to supervise a
refined young lady’s maturation. Dignified and decorous with a
slim face and aquiline nose, M. Dublan was said to have served as
page to Queen Marie Antoinette in his youth, before exercising the
profession of merchant, and his father had been treasurer for King
Louis XV. Like many aristocrats, M. Dublan had been forced to flee
France during the Revolution. He returned chastened, but with
sufficient fortune intact to enjoy a comfortable existence. His
assets included a home in Bordeaux at number 15, Cours de
l’Intendance, while his family had property in the nearby
commune of Quinsac, to the south-east of the city.2
How M. Dublan had come to bring Sophie and her German
nurse back with him to France remained a mystery, one Sophie
herself had never satisfactorily resolved. The household servants
were studiously cagey. But with M. Dublan’s exemplary treatment,
persistent questioning might have seemed churlish or
disrespectful. Sophie wanted for nothing and had been raised as
one of her adoptive father’s own children. And when M. Dublan’s
wife, Jeanne Clothilde Julie Ketty Guilhem, died while Sophie was
still in her teens, the presence of his adoptive daughter rewarded
the widower’s benevolence.3 He now had even more time to invest
in his ward, on whom he doted.
Sophie had the utmost respect and affection for her adoptive
father. And that made what she was about to do even harder. She
knew that M. Dublan vehemently disapproved.
Experience had sensitised M. Dublan to the significance of class
– with all its inconveniences and its obligations. He knew drawing
to be a prized female accomplishment in elegant society, and
accordingly, once Sophie was of age to profit from it, M. Dublan
had procured his ward a teacher. He was determined that Sophie
should learn from the best to be found – and he soon met an
instructor more than equal to the task.
In his early twenties with blue eyes, a round face and a crown
of bouncing, golden blonde curls, Raimond Bonheur resembled a
cherub from a Rococo painting. He had studied at the drawing
school in Bordeaux, where one of his teachers was the esteemed
painter and engraver Pierre Lacour.4 The bespectacled polymath
Lacour was a well-regarded figurehead of Bordeaux’s arts scene.
On his father’s death in 1814, Lacour had taken over as curator of
the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux and teacher at the city’s
free drawing school in the Rue Saint-Dominique. A man of royalist
sympathies who deferred to institutions, Lacour was a reverent
disciple of the neoclassical tradition. His syllabus centred on the
close study of nature, antiquity and the great masters, with keen
emphasis being placed on drawing. Raimond Bonheur had been
shaped by a formidable mentor.
At the time Raimond entered Lacour’s classroom in the early
part of the 19th century, the doctrines of the Romantic movement
were being trumpeted across Paris. The importance of emotion
and feeling were being advocated over what were felt to be the
repressive constraints and artifice of neoclassicism. An
impressionable youth, Raimond Bonheur was easily seduced by
this impassioned movement centred in the capital. Lacour’s
reproof was immediate: these were dangerous doctrines indeed,
the older man cautioned, expounded as they were by men
dissatisfied by the monarchy and extolling the abandonment of
order.5 The pupil was quickly swayed by his mentor. Raimond
drank in his teacher’s views, and made them his own.
Under Lacour’s tuition, Raimond developed a style which was
reassuringly conservative, a more reliable approach to painting in
uncertain times.6 Even so, making a living by one’s brush was
always a precarious business, so, his studies complete, Raimond
began giving lessons in his turn. The young artist-teacher was an
immediate success, as much due to the enthusiasm he inspired in
his pupils as the results they achieved under his instruction. That
Raimond Bonheur was also remarkably handsome merely
heightened his appeal.
Raimond Bonheur, Self Portrait, c. 1822, oil on
canvas, 73 x 58 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts-
Mairie de Bordeaux.
Photo: F. Deval. No. d’inventaire: Bx E 1164
"Yhäkö sitä nyt sentään pitäisi olla kuin mikä tuhkimus", vastasi
Kalle, käsittäen isänsä lauseen enemmän kiitokseksi kuin moitteeksi
ja ollen itsekseen hyvillänsä, että hänen ryhdissänsä tapahtunut
muutos niin selvästi näkyi.
Sepä oli rovastille ankara isku. Hän niin ällistyi, että olisi
varmaankin seljälleen kellahtanut, ell'ei olisi sattunut istumaan
karmituolissa pöytänsä edessä. Pois hän ajoi anojat sinänsä.
Mutta Liinalla oli vieläkin oma päänsä eikä rovastilla ollut nyt
yhtään enempää vaikutusvaltaa häneen kuin ennenkään. Liina osasi
ajaa asiaansa niin, että vanhuksen viimein täytyi suostua. Kuitenkin
hän pani ehdoksi, että Kallen piti ruveta itsenäiseksi maanviljelijäksi,
ja koska hänen kotitalossaan vielä oli varma entinen isäntä ja paljo
muita perillisiä ja pappila oli rovastin oma ainoastaan hänen
elinajakseen, niin ostettiin nuorille oma tila, maanlaadultaan
hyvänlainen, vaikka ei suuren suuri, vaan rakennuksiltaan perin
rappeutunut. Rovasti kuitenkin aikoi laittaa kaikki kuntoon ennen
nuorten sinne muuttamista; siihen asti he saivat tyytyä asumaan
pappilassa.
Heti häiden jälkeen kääntyi rovasti vastoin kaikkia suunnitteluja
sairaaksi eikä enää siltä tautivuoteeltaan, noussut. Kun hänen
pesäänsä ruvettiin selvittelemään, huomattiin kaiken irtaimen
menevän veloista, joten nuoret jäivät vallan tyhjin käsin oman
neuvottelemisensa tai neuvottomuutensa varaan, sillä samaa tietä oli
jo vähän ennen mennyt vanha Kaisakin. Saamamiehet korjasivat
kaikki tyyni ja heti huutokaupan jälkeen täytyi Kallen vaimoinensa
siirtyä pois tieltä.
Isäntää, joka oli ahkera työmies, alkoi tuo tuollainen elämä viimein
harmittaa ja inhottaa. Hän päätti siitä tehdä pikaisen lopun, vaan
samalla kuitenkin pitää näistäkin lapsistansa sen verran huolta, että
heidän ei tarvitsisi aivan nälkään kuolla. "Menkööt Mäkelään ja
ruvetkoot elämään omin takein!" ajatteli hän. "Jos heistä tulee eläjät,
helpotanpahan heiltä alkumatkaa; vaan jos heittäytyvät vetelyksiksi,
olen ainakin minä syytön heidän onnettomuuteensa."
IV.
Vielä oudompaa oli tulo Liinasta. Hän oli tosin kerran kesällä
Kallen kanssa astuskellen käynyt Mäkelässä ja nähnyt, miten
rappiolla kaikki oli; mutta olivathan nyt viime viikoilla notkolaiset
käyneet täällä huoneita korjailemassa ja Liina oli haaveksivissa
toiveissaan luullut sillä jo kaiken tulleen "hyväksi". Kesällä kuivalla
ilmalla olivat seinät näyttäneet paljon ehyemmillä ja puhtaammilta
kuin nyt sateesta mustina.
Liina tarkasteli päältä päin tuota rakennusta, jossa oli vain kaksi
tupaa, porstua välillä. Ikkunat olivat pienet, neliruutuiset ja nurkat
kallellaan.
"Eipä tässä nyt auta sitä katsoa", sanoi Kalle, osaamatta sen
paremmin valita lohdutustansa.
"Naisten töitähän se on, eikä tässä vielä ole piikaa", koetti Kalle
selittää ja rauhoittaa.
"En minä mene läävään, enkä minä osaa tehdä mitään. Minä
kuolen täällä!" kuului uuden itkunpuuskan seasta katkonaisin sanoin.
Kalle huomasi, että Liinalla oli tosi tuska edessä, jätti syönnin
puuhan sikseen, läksi etsimään puita, tehdäkseen tulta lieteen, ja
löysikin hyvän aikaa haeskeltuaan minkä mitäkin romua, jonka sitte
suurella vaivalla sai syttymään; kunnes viimein, liesikivien lämmittyä,
iloinen tuli alkoi levittää lämpöä tuvan kolkkouteen ja sotkea pöydällä
palavan kynttilän valoa.
"En minä mene, kun olivat niin vasten naimistamme. Ennen minä
lähden kerjäämään!"
Työ sujui jotenkin hyvin, sillä Kallea vähin elähytti toivo, että
tottahan Liina sentään aikaa myöten tottuu talouden hoitoon ja
askareihin, kun kerran pääsee mieleiseen asuntoon. Ja nyt piika ehti
yksinäänkin vielä hoitaa yhden lehmän ja laittaa ruoan niin pienelle
perheelle, neljälle hengelle, siihen luettuna päiväläinenkin, jonka
Kalle oli hankkinut avukseen kivien vääntelemiseen ja maan
kaivamiseen.
Liina puolestaan suuttui. "Vai niin, vai pitäisi minun itseni ruveta
ruokaa laittamaan! Mitä sinä oikeastaan ajatteletkaan? Sanopas
kerrankin!"
Notkolan isäntä yksin oli tyytymätön. Hän oli nyt kylliksi kuullut
Liinan emännyys-periaatteita arvataksensa, että siitä talosta ei
koskaan hyvää voinut tulla. Lisäksi vielä Kallen juominen häntä
inhotti ja hävetti niin, että hän kesken jo läksi pois, itsekseen
jupisten: "Enkö jo sanonut, enkö jo sanonut! Kyllä Kalle nyt parhaan
sai, ja se vielä saattaa hänet itsensäkin onnettomaksi ja mieron
tielle. Edestäänpähän nyt löytää, kun ei varoituksiani totellut."
Yöllä heräsi Kalle kovaan päänpakotukseen ja kömpyröi ulos
lekkerin luo saamaan lääkettä. "Voi sen peijakkaat, kun joivat kaikki!"
kuului pahoitteleminen, kun lekkeristä herui vain muutamia pisaroita,
jotka paraiksi kiihdyttivät sekä himoa että pään pakotusta.
Äkeissään yritti hän ensin nukkumaan, mutta eipä unta tullut. Hän
nousi ylös, pukeutui paraimpiin vaatteihinsa, kaivoi arkusta
lompakon taskuunsa, valjasti hevosen, nosti lekkerin kärreihin ja
läksi ajamaan.
"Mene nyt sinä lypsämään lehmät, kun piiat eivät näy joutavan
kotiin", sanoi hän Liinalle.
Liina ei ollut kuulevinaan koko asiaa. Vasta sitte, kuin Kalle lausui
kehoituksensa uudestaan, vastasi hän!
Kalle suuttui. "Jopa nyt jotakin! Vai et sinä huoli. Pitääkö minun
sitte yksinäni huolia kaikesta. Sinua varten minä tässä puuhaan
asuntoa kuntoon ennen syksyä etkä sinä huoli mistään. Eikö sinua
vähän jo viimen hävetä?"
Kului siihen tapaan joitakuita aikoja, niin että Mäkelä oli ollut
Kallen hallussa kaikkiansa puoli kuudetta vuotta.
Liina nukkui Kallen vaiettua jälleen, niin kuin ei olisi mitään huolia
ollut olemassakaan. Kun hän vain sai olla rauhassa ja omaan
tapaansa mukavuutta hoidella, niin mitä hänen tarvitsi pitää mistään
muusta lukua.