1850 -1899 · Pyrenees, Alps, Highlands and animal habitats

Happiness does not separate the landscape from the animal: forest, meadow and mountain become habitats whose scale and climate are revealed by deer, sheep and cattle.

Rosa Bonheur is first recognized as an animal painter, but her animals are often inseparable from precisely observed terrain. Her travels in the Pyrenees, Auvergne, Scotland and the Alps provide her with landscapes whose relief, vegetation and weather she studies. The Pyrenees Shepherd combines figure, herd and upper valley in a pastoral economy. Highland cattle carry in their coat and silhouette the effects of a harsh climate. Deer, forest kings or groups with fawns, inhabit undergrowth and clearings with autonomy different from that of domestic animals. Deer, forest kings or groups with fawns, inhabit undergrowth and clearings with autonomy different from that of domestic animals. A river landscape or a sheep meadow involves water, grass and rest. Bonheur sometimes composes in the workshop, but his knowledge of anatomy and habitat prevents the landscape from becoming an interchangeable background. These works, however, construct a harmonious nature, sometimes far removed from real conflicts of use. The collection emphasizes the ecological and pictorial relationship between species, soil and altitude. The "Landscapes and mountains of Rosa Bonheur" selection notably focuses on The King of the Forest and River Landscape. His reading favors movement.

The landscape of Happiness becomes credible when the animal seems to belong to it: the coat, support and distance respond to the climate and the terrain.