In the evening, at home, while other members of the family were at work, one member read aloud to the rest; and George Sand was a favorite author with the Bonheur group of artists.  It was while reading La Mare au Diable that Rosa conceived the idea of the work which by some critics is pronounced her masterpiece, Plowing in Nivernais.  The artist’s deep sympathy was aroused by her love of Nature, which no contemporary novelist expressed or appreciated as did George Sand.  In all her works, and throughout the long life of the artist, there is absolutely nothing unhealthy or immoral to be found.  The novelist had theories which were inspired by her passion, and these became unhealthy at times; she belongs first of all to France, while Rosa Bonheur belongs first of all to the world, her message reaching the young and old of every clime and every people.  The novelist is to be associated with the artist by virtue of her exquisite, simple, and wholesome peasant stories.

The entire Bonheur family were artists, and all were moral and genuinely sympathetic.  As a young girl, Rosa manifested an intense love for Nature, sunshine, and the woods; always independent in manners, she used to caricature her teachers; and while walking out into the country, she would draw, with charcoal or in sand, any objects that met her eye.  Her father was not long in detecting her talent.  She was wedded to her art from the very beginning, showing no taste for or interest in any other subject.  As soon as her father gave permission to follow art as a profession, she devoted all her energy to advancing herself in what she felt to be her life’s work.  For four years the young girl could be seen every day at the Louvre, copying the great masters and receiving principally from them her ideas of coloring and harmony, while from her father she learned her technique.  After she had mastered these two principles, she decided to specialize in pastoral nature.

From that time her whole life was given up to the study of Nature and animals.  Not able to study those near by, she procured a fine Beauvais sheep, which served as her model for two years.  From the very first her work showed accuracy, purity, and an intuitive perception of Nature, and these qualities soon placed her among the foremost artists of the time.  Her struggle for reputation and glory was not a long and arduous one, for after 1845 her fame was established—­she was then but twenty-three years old; and after 1849, having exhibited some thirty pictures, her reputation had become European.

In order to be able to study her models with greater ease and freedom from the annoyance and coarse incivilities of the workmen at the slaughter houses, farmyards, and markets that she was in the habit of visiting, she adopted the garb of man.