Explore the Reception and legacy of this artwork, Ploughing in the Nivernais.
Rosa Bonheur was claimed by New York Times critic Mary Blume as "the most famous woman painter of her time, perhaps of all time". Besides The Horse Fair, Ploughing in the Nivernais is one of Bonheur's best-known paintings, and somewhat resembles Oxen going to work by Constant Troyon. An early admirer was Anna Elizabeth Klumpke, who copied the work in the Luxembourg before beginning a long acquaintance with the artist. George du Maurier's 1894 novel Trilby mentions such a scene, of people copying Ploughing in the Nivernais and other works in the Luxembourg. It is one of the paintings singled out by Margaret Addison on her European tour in 1900, though philosopher Frédéric Paulhan in L'Esthétique du paysage (1913) was less impressed; Paulhan argued that good art simplifies, and that Ploughing in the Nivernais does not do so, spoiling it with the execution of the clods of earth. Those clods and the greenery were done, according to Bonheur, in a "heartwarming" way, according to Paulhan; she did not create, but merely reproduced, since on the one hand she was too complete by providing too much insignificant detail, and on the other hand she weakened nature by reproducing it. Paul Cézanne was also unimpressed, commenting that "it is horribly like the real thing".In 1978 a critic described the work as "entirely forgotten and rarely dragged out from oblivion"; that year it was part of a series of paintings sent to China by the French government for an exhibition titled "The French Landscape and Peasant, 1820–1905". Mary Blume, in 1997, said "the work [Horse Fair as well as Ploughing] is more careful than inspired, affectionate but not sentimental, a doughty celebration of working animals".
Anna Elizabeth Klumpke Trilby The Horse Fair New York Times Nivernais Constant Troyon Frédéric Paulhan Margaret Addison Ox George du Maurier Rosa Bonheur Paul Cézanne Mary Blume