Promising Wild Child
At school, Bonheur showed great promise in art. She would visit the Louvre to copy paintings, and perhaps more importantly, she drew from life, creating paintings of animals with incredible movement. However, the school system did not suit this rebellious young woman – she was expelled from a number of schools, and her art was largely self-taught. Partly linked to the tradition of landscape painting, partly linked to the Realist tradition, and partly influenced by the en plein air practices of the Barbizon School, she was, however, unlike any other artist of the period.