Brio

We were visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art when we happened upon this young woman talking about a painting I'd always liked. It’s called “The Horse Fair” by Rosa Bonheur, a French painter who lived and worked in the mid and late 1800’s.

The energy in the painting was palpable. Everything seemed to move, the muscular legs of the horses, the arms of the one of the men as he pulled taut on the reins, the darkening clouds in the sky. It took up much of the wall as if to say,  “Stand here; take a long look.”

  

The Met’s gallery label said that “for a year and a half (Bonheur) made sketches twice a week in the horse market in Paris, on the boulevard del’Hopital, dressing as a man in order to attract less attention from horse dealers and buyers.” How daring of her to be there on her own terms, to spend that much time preparing to create her painting, to get it that right.  

If that said “brio,” so did the lecturer. I paused for a few moments to hear her. She was utterly swept up in the work. I had visited with this painting many times but hadn’t seen all the nuances she saw. Her exuberance charmed us; we leaned in to listen some more.