A lighthearted and lightly fictionalized biography of artist Rosa Bonheur.
Rosa Bonheur loved to draw animals. Being an artist, however, was not an option for girls in nineteenth-century France. Rosa, however, rejected all of the things girls were supposed to learn, like sewing, cooking, and gardening. Finally, her father agreed to let her study art at home with her brothers. She even brought dogs, cats, and a goat into their house so she could scrutinize them and draw them accurately. Although she was also captivated by the horses in the local market, she found herself kicked out by the merchants who said it was no place for a girl. Her father, of course, told her, “No Horses in the House!”
She dressed as a boy and snuck back into the market, only to be ejected by a policeman who saw through her disguise and said it was against the law for girls to dress as boys. Sharp-eyed Rosa noted an outdoor stage performance with men wearing women’s dresses, and asked why they can do so; the policeman replied that they have been given special permission, something a girl would never get. (In these days of bans and attempted bans on drag, readers may find much food for thought in the earlier customs that permitted cross-gender clothing for men while resisting it for women.)
Rosa, as they say, persisted. Within weeks she was back in the horse market with a permit saying should could dress any way she wanted. When she first exhibited her drawings in Paris, some loved their realistic detail, while others dismissed her as untrained. Rosa kept painting, and kept wearing pants, until her painting The Horse Fair made her one of the most lauded artists of the time.
Bonheur’s “lifelong partner” of 40 years, Nathalie Micas, is mentioned only briefly in a timeline at the end. I can understand leaving any romantic relationships out of the main text, in order to focus on the arc of Bonheur’s artistic development (especially in such a short book), but I would have liked to see something more about their relationship in the Author’s Note, especially as this would have supported the book’s picture of Bonheur as a strong-willed, independent woman who lived her life as she would, regardless of social mores. (There is also no mention at all of Anna Klumpke, the American painter she lived with after Micas died and to whom she left her estate. Klumpke was 34 years her junior, and it is unclear if their relationship was romantic, but it was clearly important.)
Still, this is an account of Bonheur’s life that is definitely worth adding to any bookshelf of children’s biographies—especially one about women who have made a mark in the world. Mireille Messier’s text deftly brings readers into Bonheur’s life and keeps the action moving (a notable feat when writing about a slow-moving activity like art). Anna Bron’s illustrations are lively and engaging while using a muted palette that evokes the 19th century.
Readers looking for a little more detail about Bonheur’s life, though still in picture book form, might try A Storm of Horses: The Story of Artist Rosa Bonheur, which came out about a year before this one. For younger readers, however, No Horses in the House! conveys the gist of her significance with verve and fun.
(Side note: The Encyclopedia of Lesbian and Gay Histories and Cultures says that Bonheur wrote in her diary, “If I’d been a man, I would have married her, and people wouldn’t have invented all those silly stories. I would’ve started a family, had children and heirs, and no one could have said a thing about it.”)
