Style Imitating Art: Sheep by the Sea by Rosa Bonheur

About Style Imitating Art

Style Imitating Art is hosted by Daenel of Living Outside the Stacks, Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey, and Terri of MeadowTree Style. Style Imitating Art challenges us to draw style inspiration from pieces of art. Every other Monday, one of the hosts, acting as curator, selects an inspiration image that they will each post on their blogs. The following Monday, each host shares her art inspired outfit. Participants are invited to submit their art inspired outfits to the curator by 10:00 p.m. EST on the Tuesday following the hosts’ art inspired outfit posts. The following day, Wednesday, the curator will share all of the submissions on her blog.

You don’t have to be a blogger to join! You are invited to share your images on Instagram or other social media platforms! Just be sure to tag Salazar, Terri, and Daenel or use #TeamLOTSStyle and #StyleImitatingArt so the hosts know you have joined. Go have some fun in your closets and join the SIA challenge next week!

The Inspiration Artwork

The inspiration artwork was curated by Terri of MeadowTree Style. You can read why she has chosen this specific piece as her inspiration artwork here.

Sheep by the Sea by Rosa Bonheur (Oil on Cradled Panel, 1865)

About the Artist: Rosa Bonheur

Rosa Bonheur (March 16, 1822-May 25, 1899), born Marie-Rosalie Bonheur, was a French artist most famous for her realistic animal paintings and sculptures in the mid-nineteenth century. She is widely considered to be the most famous female painter of her century despite falling out of favor as the contemporary art atmosphere shifted away from Realism into Impressionism in the late 1800’s. Once Impressionism became the benchmark of “good art”, all that came before it suddenly turned obsolete and became much less desirable.

Although Impressionism was a radical move away from Rosa’s preferred style of Realism, her en plein air technique (painting outdoors in natural light) was favored greatly by and heavily influenced Impressionist artists like Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro. Bonheur was a forward thinker not just in the realm of art and artistic creation, but in the way she chose to live her life in her own truth. While her work has had lasting impact in the world of art, it was her refusal to live her life dictated by men’s rules that has cemented her in history as one of the earliest and most influential feminists and gender equality activists that have paved the way for all future activists.

Bonheur was born in Bordeaux, France, in 1822, the oldest of four children to very artistic parents. Her mother was a piano teacher, who died from tuberculosis when Rosa was only 11 years old, and her father was a landscape and portrait painter, who encouraged his children’s artistic talents. Although the Bonheur family was of Jewish origin, they followed the beliefs of Saint-Simonianism, a Christian-socialist sect that promoted equal education for women alongside men. All three of Rosa’s siblings were also talented artists and were the subject of Francis Galton’s 1869 essay “Hereditary Genius”.

When Rosa was 6, her family relocated to Paris. According to family accounts, Rosa was an unruly child who struggled with learning to read. However, even at this very young age, she would spend hours sketching with pencil and paper before she ever learned how to talk. To assist with her reading lessons, her mother would have Rosa draw a different animal to represent each letter of the alphabet. The artist credits her mother for instilling her love of animal drawing and painting.

In school, Rosa was known to be disruptive and was expelled more than once for nonconforming behaviors. When she was 12, she failed as an apprentice to a seamstress at which point her father took her under his tutelage and began her art instruction himself. Through her painting studies, she became more and more interested in animal anatomy and osteology which she would study in the slaughterhouses of Paris. She also prepared detailed animal studies at the National Veterinary Institute of Paris.

As her talents as an animal painter grew, Rosa Bonheur quickly rose to fame in her 20’s and 30’s receiving commissions from royals, government officials, and celebrities throughout Europe. Her first great success as a painter came in 1849 when the French government commissioned her to paint Ploughing in the Nivernais which expresses a deep commitment to the land in the imagery of the two teams of oxen ploughing a field. In 1855, she completed her most famous work, The Horse Fair, which is an 8 x 16 foot painting of Paris’s famous horse market. The prime version of this painting was purchased by Cornelius Vanderbilt II and donated to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1887 where it still resides today. It is one of the museum’s most popular works.

As important as Rosa Bonheur’s contributions to the art world were, it was the way she lived her life without shame that is the most inspiring. During her lifetime, women were only reluctantly educated in the arts. By becoming a famous female painter in her own right, Bonheur paved the way for all the women artists who followed. She was viewed as a “New Woman” of the 19th Century and was known for wearing men’s clothing as her practical means of dressing as she studied domesticated farm animals in their environments and in slaughterhouses.

On November 17, 1800, the French government passed a “decree concerning the cross-dressing of women” which forbid women from wearing pants. This law remained effectively on the books until 2013. But in 1852, Rosa Bonheur petitioned the French police to grant her an exception as pants were more practical for her work than traditional women’s attire. Because she had already made a name for herself, her exception was granted and she continued to wear men’s clothing for her entire life. In a time and culture where gender expression was heavily policed, Rosa broke through all sorts of boundaries by donning pants, shirts, and ties. She didn’t dress this way because she wanted to be or look like a man. Rather, she simply refused to conform to the societal construction of the gender binary. While she never openly admitted her sexuality, she lived openly with her same sex partner Nathalie Micas for 40 years until Micas’s death in 1889. Then she became intimately involved with American portrait painter Anna Klumpke whom she lived with until her own death in 1899.

Bonheur died on May 25, 1899, at the age of 77, in Thomery, France. She was buried next to Micas at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Upon Klumpke’s death in 1942, her remains were also buried in the same plot.

Rosa Bonheur’s French chateau that houses her studio was purchased in 2017 by Katherine Brault who is in the process of restoring it to its original splendor. Ms. Brault discovered over 50,000 unknown works in the basement and throughout the property when she began work on the home. You can read more about that process and find visiting hours in this fascinating article.

About the Art: Sheep by the Sea by Rosa Bonheur

Following a trip to the Scottish Highlands in the summer of 1855, Bonheur created this oil painting of a complacent flock of sheep resting in a meadow near the sea. Sheep by the Sea demonstrates the artist’s commitment to observe her subjects directly in nature. She has applied the paint thickly to the canvas to create the depth and detail that the Realist style demands. There is no human interference in the image other than the painter’s eye. The animal subjects are not bound by human laws or emotions creating a serene and calming natural effect. She has used muted hues of browns, greens, and blues that soothe the eye and bring an overwhelming sense of peacefulness.

This work was commissioned by Empress Eugénie of France. Although it was completed in 1865, it was displayed at the Salon in 1867 before it entered the Empress’s personal collection.

This painting is oil on a cradled canvas and measures 12 3/4 x 18 inches (32 x 45 cm). It was donated to the National Museum of Women in the Arts by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay but is currently not on display.

References/Resources:

• Rosa Bonheur: Wikipedia
• The Redemption of Rosa Bonheur
• The Art Story: Rosa Bonheur-Biography and Legacy
• National Museum of Women in the Arts: Sheep by the Sea by Rosa Bonheur

About My Outfit Inspired by Sheep by the Sea

I stared at this painting for a great long time, days actually, as I let the image conjure up things in my closet that would work. I wanted to keep my outfit in the same color scheme as the painting with greens on the bottom half and blues on the top half but I also knew that I wanted to incorporate why white furry vest because it reminds me of sheep.

Initially, I had thought to wear this camouflage dress with a denim shirt on top but then I remembered this blue tie dye top that I wore for my Fab 40’s Air theme a few months back. It really does resemble the sky and worked perfectly for a pattern mix with the camouflage. I opted for green over the knee boots because I wanted to keep the whole bottom half of the outfit in shades of green. Then I added my furry vest on top although I do prefer the outfit without the vest.

As we headed out to the water’s edge to take some photos, I realized how chilly it has gotten and needed a coat. So I grabbed my Highlander’s plaid coat because that just makes sense for art that was inspired in the Scottish Highlands. I also wore my ivory knit beret to pick up the color and texture of the sheep as well as that Highland vibe. The colors in my plaid coat coordinated well enough with the other colors in my outfit that it made this strange combination of camouflage, tie dye, and plaid work harmoniously together…as cool, calm, and complacent as sheep by the sea.

I ended up really liking this outfit but it is not something I would have put together if not for the Style Imitating Art prompt. Looking at your wardrobe with a new and different perspective really can have some pretty magnificent results. You should all give it a try!

To see more outfits inspired by Rosa Bonheur’s Sheep by the Sea, please visit Terri’s post for the complete roundup of submissions. You can also read the details of Terri’s own inspired outfit here, Daenel’s here, and Salazar’s here. Have you joined the Style Imitating Art challenges yet? Be sure to check for the next prompt on Monday, November 8, 2021.

Keeping it on the edge,

Shelbee

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