Rosa bonheur the horse fair critique
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Masterpiece Story: The Horse Fair by Rosa Bonheur
Today’s Masterpiece Story is that of The Horse Fair by French Realist painter Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899). The Horse Fair was the undisputed star of the Salon of 1853. Bonheur was already an admired animal painter when she submitted this monumental canvas to France’s major annual art show. She was only ineligible to win a gold medal for this painting because she had already claimed that once-in-a-lifetime prize for earlier work. However, the critical acclaim this masterpiece garnered, even from critics who panned the rest of the offerings, took her fame to a whole new level.
The Horse Fair: A Massive and Compelling Depiction of Parisian Horse Market by Rosa Bonheur
The photograph doesn’t properly convey how massive this painting is! Over 8 feet high and 16.5 feet long, or about 2.5 x 5 meters, it takes up an entire gallery wall at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s an extremely impressive painting, especially in person. The Horse Fair depicts a Parisian horse market that Bonheur visited twice every week for about a year and a half.
The fair appears as a whirling storm of activity, viewed from just far enough away to avoid getting trampled. There’s a strong sense of dynamic movement from both the horses and their
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The Horse Fair
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Title:The Horse Fair
Artist:Rosa Bonheur (French, Bordeaux 1822–1899 Thomery)
Date:1852–55
Medium:Oil backdrop canvas
Dimensions:96 1/4 x 199 1/2 inspect. (244.5 x 506.7 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift depose Cornelius Philanthropist, 1887
Object Number:87.25
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Rosa Bonheur's fantastic "Horse Fair" is a massive canvas that caused quite a stir when it first appeared at the Salon in France back in 1853. Standing in front of the painting today at the Met, the effect of the circling horses was dizzying. I could almost hear the commotion and clatter of hooves. The visceral sense of "being there" is accentuated by the way Bonheur constructed her painted space.
| Solution 1: Objects on the same perpendicular plane get smaller to the left and right |
The panoramic sweep of her canvas seems to adhere to this Hyperbolic perspective grid. Imagine that these black silhouetted figures are all standing in a perfectly straight line from left to right. I've exaggerated the effect a bit in the illustration, but to the real-world viewer it would appear that they shrink towards the horizon line as they get further away from us. We know that the line they are standing on is straight, but it appears curved in reality.
Our brains do lots of similar tricks, lining up our reality with what it knows to be true rather than what it actually sees. Imagine you arrived late to a movie and you're sitting in the front row of the theater, squashed all the way over on the furthest seat to the right. A giant square shape appears on th