Sir Edwin Landseer, born in 1802, in London, on or about March 7, was
the fifth child in a family of seven children. The father, John
Landseer, a most skilful engraver, was the author of some books on the
art of engraving and archaeology. He once gave a course of lectures
before the Royal Institution. The mother, whose maiden name was Miss
Potts, was a gifted and beautiful woman, whose portrait was painted by
Sir Joshua Reynolds.
[Illustration: SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.]
The boy Edwin began to draw very early in life. Miss Meteyard quotes
these words from John Landseer: "These two fields were Edwin's first
studio. Many a time have I lifted him over this very stile. I then lived
in Foley Street, and nearly all the way between Marylebone and Hampstead
was open fields. It was a favorite walk with my boys; and one day when I
had accompanied them, Edwin stopped by this stile to admire some sheep
and cows which were quietly grazing. At his request I lifted him over,
and, finding a scrap of paper and a pencil in my pocket, I made him
sketch a cow. He was very young indeed then--not more than six or seven
years old.
"After this we came on several occasions, and as he grew older this was
one of his favorite spots for sketching. He would start off alone, or
with John (Thomas?) or Charles, and remain till I fetched him in the
afternoon. I would then criticise his work, and make him correct defects
before we left the spot. Sometimes he would sketch in one field,
sometimes in the other, but generally in the one beyond the old oak we
see there, as it was more pleasant and sunny."
While still very young, the lad learned the process of etching from his
father and elder brother Thomas, the latter one of the most eminent of
engravers. At seven, he drew and etched the heads of a lion and a tiger,
"in which," says Frederick G. Stephens, "the differing characters of the
beasts are given with marvellous craft, that would honor a much older
artist than the producer. The drawing of the tiger's whiskers--always
difficult things to manage--is admirable in its rendering of
foreshortened curves."
At thirteen he drew a magnificent St. Bernard dog. Edwin saw him in the
streets of London, in charge of a man servant. He followed the dog to
the residence of his owner, and obtained permission to make a sketch of
him. The animal was six feet four inches long, and, at the middle of his
back, stood two feet seven inches in height. These creatures are capable
of carrying one hundredweight of provisions from a neighboring town to
the monks at the Monastery of St. Bernard, eighteen miles.
Stephens says: "It is really one of the finest drawings of a dog that
have ever been produced. We do not think that even the artist at any
time surpassed its noble workmanship. The head, though expansive and
domical in its shape, is small in proportion to that of a Newfoundland
dog; the brow is broad and round; the eyes, according to the standard
commonly assumed for large dogs, are far from being large, and are very
steadfast in their look, without fierceness; the ears are pendulous,
placed near to the head, and fleshy in substance." A live dog, admitted
into the room with this picture, became greatly excited.
When Edwin was thirteen, in 1815, he exhibited some pictures at the
Royal Academy; a mule, and a dog with a puppy. The following year he
became a student at the Royal Academy. He was a bright, manly boy, with
light, curly hair, gentle and graceful in manner, and diligent in his
work. Fuseli, the keeper of the Academy, was much pleased with him, and,
looking around the room upon the students, would say, "Where is my
little dog boy?" This was in allusion to the picture of Edwin's favorite
dog, Brutus, lying at full length of his chain, near a red earthenware
dish. The picture, though very small, was sold in 1861 for seventy
guineas.
In 1818, "Fighting Dogs Getting Wind" was exhibited at Spring Gardens,
and caused a great sensation. The _Examiner_ said, in a review of the
works of the Society of Painters in Oil and Water-Colors, "Landseer's
may be called the great style of animal painting, as far as it relates
to the execution and color, and the natural, as far as it concerns their
portraiture. Did we see only the dog's collar, we should know that it
was produced by no common hand, so good is it, and palpably true. But
the gasping and cavernous and redly stained mouths, the flaming eyes,
the prostrate dog, and his antagonist standing exultingly over him; the
inveterate rage that superior strength inflames but cannot subdue, with
the broad and bright relief of the objects, give a wonder-producing
vitality to the canvas."
Landseer also exhibited this year the "White Horse in a Stable." It
disappeared from the studio, and twenty-four years later, in 1842, it
was discovered in a hayloft, where it had been hidden by a dishonest
servant. It was sent to Honorable H. Pierrepont, for whom it was
painted, with a letter from Landseer, saying that he had not retouched
the picture, "thinking it better when my early style was unmingled with
that of my old age."
In 1819, "The Cat Disturbed" was exhibited, afterwards engraved with the
title of "The Intruder." It represents a cat chased to the upper part of
a stable by a dog, into whose place she had ventured. Dr. Waagen said,
"This picture exhibits a power of coloring and a solidity of execution
recalling such masters as Snyders and Fyt."
About this time a lion in the Exeter Change Menagerie died, and the
young artist succeeded in getting the body and dissecting it, acting
upon Haydon's advice, of years before, to "dissect animals, the only
mode of acquiring a knowledge of their construction."
The result was the painting of two large pictures, six feet by eight,
and six feet by seven feet six inches respectively: "A Lion Disturbed at
his Repast," and "A Lion Enjoying his Repast," followed by a third, "A
Prowling Lion."
In 1821, the chief pictures exhibited were "The Rat-Catchers," where
four dogs are catching rats in an old barn; and "Pointers, To-ho," a
hunting-scene, which sold in 1872 for over ten thousand dollars. The
following year, Landseer received from the directors of the British
Institution seven hundred and fifty dollars as a prize for "The Larder
Invaded." Eighteen other pictures came from Landseer's studio this year.
The most famous of Sir Edwin's early works was "The Cat's-Paw," sold for
five hundred dollars, and now owned by the Earl of Essex. Its present
value is over fifteen thousand dollars.
"The scene," says Stephens, "is a laundry or ironing-room, probably in
some great house, to which a monkey of most crafty and resolute
disposition has access. The place is too neat and well maintained to be
part of a poor man's house. The ironing-woman has left her work, the
stove is in full combustion, and the hand of some one who appreciated
the good things of life has deposited on its level top, together with a
flatiron, half a dozen ripe, sound chestnuts. To the aromatic,
appetizing odor of the fruit was probably due the entrance of the
monkey, a muscular, healthy beast, who came dragging his chain and
making his bell rattle. He smelt the fruit and coveted them; tried to
steal them off the cooking-place with his own long, lean digits, and
burnt his fingers.
"He looked about for a more effective means, and, heedless of the
motherhood of a fine cat, who with her kittens was ensconced in a
clothes-basket, where she blandly enjoyed the coverings and the heat,
pounced upon puss, entangled as she was in the wrappings of her ease.
Puss resisted at first with offended dignity and wrath at being thus
treated before the faces of her offspring. She resisted as a cat only
can, with lithe and strenuous limbs; the muscular, light, and vigorous
frame of the creature quivered with the stress of her energy; she
twisted, doubled her body, buckled herself, so to say, in convulsions of
passion and fear, but still, surely, without a notion of the object of
her captor.
"Yet he had by far the best of the struggle, for her tiger-like claws
were enveloped in the covering which erst served her so comfortably;
and, kicking, struggling, squalling, and squealing as strength departed
from her, she flounced about the room, upset the coal-scuttle on the
floor, and hurled her mistress's favorite flower-pot in hideous
confusion on the 'ironing-blanket.' It was to no purpose, for the
quadruped, with muffled claws, was no match for her four-handed foe. He
dragged her towards the stove, and dreadful notions of a fate in its
fiery bowels must have arisen in her heart as nearer and still more near
the master of the situation brought his victim.
"Stern, resolute, with no more mercy than the cat had when some unhappy
mouse felt her claws--claws now to be deftly yet painfully employed, Pug
grasped her in three of his powerful hands, and, as reckless of
struggles as of yells, squeals, and squalls, with the fourth stretched
out her soft, sensitive, velvety forepaw--the very mouse-slayer
itself--to the burning stove and its spoils. What cared he for the bared
backs or the spiteful mewlings of her miserable offspring, little cats
as they were? He made their mother a true 'cat's-paw.'"
Soon after the exhibition of this picture, Sir Walter Scott came to
London and took the young painter to Abbotsford. The novelist greatly
admired Landseer's work, saying, "His dogs are the most magnificent
things I ever saw, leaping and bounding and grinning all over the
canvas." After this, Landseer visited Scotland nearly every year,
charmed by its scenery and enjoying the hospitality of the nobles.
In his thirty-second year, it seemed necessary that the painter should
have a home removed from the soot and noisy traffic of London. A small
house and garden, with a barn suitable for a studio, were purchased at
No. 1 St. John's Wood, a suburban region, which derives its name from
having been owned by the priors of the Hospital of the Knights of St.
John of Jerusalem. A premium of a hundred pounds being demanded for the
house, Landseer was about to break off negotiations, when a friend said:
"If that is the only obstacle, I will remove it. Go to the lawyers, and
tell them to make out the lease, and that as soon as it is ready for
signatures, you will pay the sum required; and I will lend you the
money, which you can repay when it suits you, without interest."
The painter returned the money loaned, in instalments of twenty pounds
each. Here he lived for nearly fifty years, his sister, Mrs. Mackenzie,
being his housekeeper. Here he received more famous people than any
other English painter save Joshua Reynolds. Here, as he grew wealthy, he
brought his dogs and other pets; here the father, John Landseer, to whom
the son was ever devotedly attached, died.
A writer in _Cornhill_ says: "There were few studios formerly more
charming to visit than Landseer's. Besides the genial artist and his
beautiful pictures, the _habitues_ of his workshop (as he called it)
belonged to the _elite_ of London society, especially the men of wit and
distinguished talents--none more often there than D'Orsay, with his
good-humored face, his ready wit and delicate flattery. 'Landseer,' he
would call out at his entrance, 'keep de dogs off me' (the painted
ones). 'I want to come in, and some of dem will bite me--and dat fellow
in de corner is growling furiously.'"
In 1826, when Landseer was twenty-four years old, "Chevy Chase" was
painted, now at Woburn Abbey, the property of the Duke of Bedford. It is
an illustration of the old ballad:--
"To drive the deer with hound and horne
Erle Percy took his way,
The chiefest harts in Chevy Chase
To kill and bear away."
This year, he was made an associate of the Royal Academy, an honor
seldom given to so young a man. He was made a full member at thirty. His
first important picture exhibited after this, in 1827, was "The Chief's
Return from Deer-stalking." "It is," says Stephens, "one of the best of
his compositions, the subject giving scope to all his powers in dealing
with dogs, deer, and horses. Across the backs of a white and a black
pony two magnificent antlered deer are bound. A young chief and his old
companion, a mountaineer,--with traces of the wear and tear of a hard
life on his cheeks and in his gaunt eyes,--step by the head of one of
the horses. They go slowly and heedfully down the hill. Two dogs pace
with them; one of these turns to a deer's skull which lies in the
herbage."
"The Monkey who had seen the World" appeared at the same time as "The
Chief's Return," and was engraved by Gibbon as "The Travelled Monkey."
The monkey, who has returned from his travels and meets his friends, is
dressed in a cocked hat and laced coat, with a wide cravat, breeches,
buckled shoes, and a pendent eyeglass. The latter, especially,
astonishes his friends. Thomas Baring gave fifteen hundred guineas for
this painting, and bequeathed it to Lord Northbrook.
Another picture of this time, engraved by John Pye, was thus described
in the Catalogue: "William Smith, being possessed of combativeness, and
animated by a love of glory, enlisted in the 101st Regiment of Foot. At
the Battle of Waterloo, on the 18th of July following, a cannon-ball
carried off one of his legs; thus commenced and terminated William's
military career. As he lay wounded on the field of battle, the dog here
represented, blind with one eye, and having also a leg shattered
apparently by a musket-ball, came and sat beside him, as 'twere for
sympathy.
"The dog became William's prisoner, and, when a grateful country
rewarded William's services by a pension and a wooden leg, he stumped
about accompanied by the dog, his friend and companion. On the 15th of
December, 1834, William died. His name never having been recorded in an
extraordinary Gazette, this public monument, representing the dog at a
moment when he was ill, and reclining against the mattress on which his
master died, is erected to his memory by Edwin Landseer and John Pye."
In this year, 1827, there was also exhibited the well-known "Scene at
Abbotsford," with the celebrated Maida, Sir Walter Scott's favorite dog,
in the foreground. Six weeks after the picture was painted, the dog
died. "High Life" and "Low Life," exhibited in 1831, noteworthy on
account of their size, being eighteen inches by thirteen and a half,
were bequeathed by Robert Vernon to the nation, and are now in the
National Gallery. "High Life" represents a gentle and slender stag-hound
in a handsome home; "Low Life," a brawny bulldog, in a rude stone
doorway.
Hamerton says: "Everything that can be said about Landseer's knowledge
of animals, and especially of dogs, has already been said. There was
never very much to say, for there was no variety of opinion and nothing
to discuss. Critics may write volumes of controversy about Turner and
Delacroix, but Landseer's merits were so obvious to every one that he
stood in no need of critical explanations. The best commentators on
Landseer, the best defenders of his genius, are the dogs themselves; and
so long as there exist terriers, deer-hounds, bloodhounds, his fame will
need little assistance from writers upon art."
In 1832, "Spaniels of King Charles's Breed" was exhibited; now in the
National Gallery, as a gift from Mr. Vernon. Both these spaniels, pets
of Mr. Vernon, came to a violent end. The white Blenheim spaniel fell
from a table and was killed; the true "King Charles" fell through the
railings of a staircase, and was picked up dead at the bottom. The
picture was painted in two days, illustrating Landseer's wonderful
rapidity of execution. Yet this power, as Stephens well says, "followed
more than twenty years' hard study."
Stephens records an amazing instance of Landseer's power. "A large party
was assembled one evening at the house of a gentleman in the upper ranks
of London society; crowds of ladies and gentlemen of distinction were
present, including Landseer, who was, as usual, a lion; a large group
gathered about the sofa where he was lounging. The subject turned on
dexterity and facility in feats of skill with the hand. No doubt, the
talk was ingeniously led in this direction by some who knew that Sir
Edwin could do wonders of dexterous draughtsmanship, and were not
unwilling to see him draw, but they did not expect what followed.
"A lady, lolling back on a settee, and rather tired of the subject, as
ladies are apt to become when conversation does not appeal to their
feelings or their interests, exclaimed, after many instances of manual
dexterity had been cited: 'Well, there's one thing nobody has ever done,
and that is to draw two things at once.' She had signalized herself by
quashing a subject of conversation, and was about to return to her most
becoming attitude, when Landseer said: 'Oh, I can do that; lend me two
pencils, and I will show you.'
"The pencils were got, a piece of paper was laid on the table, and Sir
Edwin, a pencil in each hand, drew simultaneously, and without
hesitation, with the one hand the profile of a stag's head, and all its
antlers complete, and with the other hand the perfect profile of a
horse's head. Both drawings were full of energy and spirit, and,
although, as the occasion compelled, not finished, they were, together
and individually, quite as good as the master was accustomed to produce
with his right hand alone; the drawing by the left hand was not inferior
to that by the right."
In 1834, "Suspense," a bloodhound watching at a closed door for his
wounded master, "A Highland Shepherd Dog rescuing Sheep from a
Snowdrift," and "A Scene of the Old Time at Bolton Abbey" were
exhibited. For the last, Landseer was paid two thousand dollars. It is
now owned by the Duke of Devonshire, and is valued at more than fifteen
thousand dollars. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert made etchings from
this and from several others of Landseer's works.
In 1835, "A Sleeping Bloodhound" (Countess) was exhibited. It was
bequeathed by Mr. Jacob Bell to the National Gallery. "The hound was,
one dark night (at Wandsworth), anxiously watching her master's return
from London. She heard the wheels of his gig and his voice, but, in
leaping from the balcony where she watched, she missed her footing, and
fell all but dead at her master's feet. Mr. Bell (the owner of the dog)
placed the hound in his gig and returned to London, called Sir Edwin
Landseer from his bed, and had a sketch made then and there of the dying
animal."
In 1837 came "The Highland Shepherd's Chief Mourner," representing the
interior of a plain Highland home, the coffin of the shepherd in the
centre, covered by his maud for a pall, his only mourner the dog who
rests his head upon the coffin. A well-worn Bible is on a stool in
front, with a pair of spectacles.
Ruskin calls this picture "one of the most perfect poems or pictures (I
use the words as synonymous) which modern times have seen. Here the
exquisite execution of the crisp and glossy hair of the dog, the bright,
sharp touching of the green bough beside it, the clear painting of the
wood of the coffin and the folds of the blanket, are language,--language
clear and expressive in the highest degree. But the close pressure of
the dog's breast against the wood; the convulsive clinging of the paws,
which has dragged the blanket off the trestle; the total powerlessness
of the head, laid close and motionless upon its folds; the fixed and
tearful fall of the eye in its utter hopelessness; the rigidity of
repose, which marks that there has been no motion nor change in the
trance of agony since the last blow was struck upon the coffin-lid; the
spectacles marking the place where the Bible was last closed, indicating
how lonely has been the life, how unwatched the departure, of him who
is now laid solitary in his sleep,--these are all thoughts; thoughts by
which the picture is separated at once from hundreds of equal merit as
far as the mere painting goes,--by which it ranks as a work of high
merit, and stamps its author, not as the neat imitator of the texture of
a skin or the fold of a drapery, but as a Man of Mind."
"The Portrait of the Marquis of Stafford and the Lady Evelyn Gower," in
1838, is considered Landseer's best portrait-picture. "A Distinguished
Member of the Humane Society," exhibited in 1838, is the picture of a
large Newfoundland dog named Paul Pry. "He lies in the broad sunlight,
and the shadow of his enormous head is cast sideways on his flank as
white as snow. He looks seaward with a watchful eye, and his quickness
of attention is hinted at by the gentle lifting of his ears. The
painting of the hide, here rigid and there soft; here shining with
reflected light, there like down; the masses of the hair, as the dog's
habitual motions caused them to grow; the foreshortening of his paws as
they hang over the edge of the quay, and the fine sense of
_chiaro-oscuro_ displayed in the whole, induce us to rank it," says
Stephens, "with the painter's masterpieces."
Landseer was now thirty-six years old, famous and honored, a welcome
guest at the palaces of royalty. In 1835 he had painted Dash, the
favorite spaniel of the Duchess of Kent, the pet of whom Leslie speaks
in his autobiography: "The Queen [Victoria], I am told, had studied her
part very diligently, and she went through it extremely well. I don't
know why, but the first sight of her in her robes brought tears into my
eyes, and it had this effect upon many people; she looked almost like a
child. She is very fond of dogs, and has one very favorite little
spaniel, who is always on the lookout for her return when she has been
from home. She had of course been separated from him on that day longer
than usual, and when the state coach drove up to the steps of the
palace, she heard him barking with joy in the hall, and exclaimed,
'There's Dash!' and was in a hurry to lay aside the sceptre and ball she
carried in her hands, and take off the crown and robes, to go and wash
little Dash."
In 1839 Landseer painted a picture of the Queen, which she gave to
Prince Albert; the next year, the Queen and the Duke of Wellington
reviewing a body of troops; in 1842, "The Queen and Children;" the
Princess Royal with her pony and dog; the Queen and the Princess Royal;
"Windsor Castle in the Present Time;" Islay, the Queen's pet terrier;
Sharp, her favorite; Princess Alice in a cradle, with the dog Dandie
Dinmont; Alice with the greyhound Eos, belonging to Prince Albert, and
later "Her Majesty the Queen in the Highlands," "Prince Albert at
Balmoral," which was engraved for the Queen's book, "Leaves from a Diary
in the Highlands;" Princess Beatrice on horseback, the Queen at
Osborne, and the Queen on a white horse.
Landseer was always a favorite with the royal family. In the last
painful years of his life, when he suffered from overtaxed nerves, they
were his devoted friends. He writes to his sister from Balmoral, June,
1867: "The Queen kindly commands me to get well here. She has to-day
been twice to my room to show additions recently added to her already
rich collection of photographs. Why, I know not, but since I have been
in the Highlands I have for the first time felt wretchedly weak, without
appetite. The easterly winds, and now again the unceasing cold rain, may
possibly account for my condition, but I can't get out. Drawing tires
me; however, I have done a little better to-day. The doctor residing in
the castle has taken me in hand, and gives me leave to dine to-day with
the Queen and the rest of the royal family.... Flogging would be mild
compared to my sufferings. No sleep, fearful cramp at night, accompanied
by a feeling of faintness and distressful feebleness."
When Landseer was in good health, he was the most genial of companions.
He was the intimate friend of Dickens, Thackeray, Browning, and other
noted men. Leslie tells the following incident at a dinner party at the
house of Sir Francis Chantrey, the sculptor. "Edwin Landseer, the best
of mimics, gave a capital specimen of Chantrey's manner, and at
Chantrey's own table. Dining at his house with a large party, after the
cloth was removed from the beautifully polished table,--Chantrey's
furniture was all beautiful,--Landseer's attention was called by him to
the reflections, in the table, of the company, furniture, lamps, etc.
'Come and sit in my place and study perspective,' said our host, and
went himself to the fire. As soon as Landseer was seated in Chantrey's
chair, he turned round, and, imitating his voice and manner, said to
him: 'Come, young man, you think yourself ornamental; now make yourself
useful, and ring the bell.' Chantrey did as he was desired; the butler
appeared, and was perfectly bewildered at hearing his master's voice,
from the head of the table, order some claret, while he saw him standing
before the fire."
Some one urged Sydney Smith to sit to Landseer for his portrait. He is
said to have replied in the words of the Syrian messenger to the prophet
Elisha: "Is thy servant a _dog_, that he should do this great thing?"
At another time Landseer was talking to Sydney Smith about the drama,
and said: "With your love of humor, it must be an act of great
self-denial to abstain from going to the theatres." The witty clergyman
replied, "The managers are very polite; they send me free admissions
which I can't use, and, in return, I send them free admissions to St.
Paul's."
Bewick, the artist, said: "Sir Edwin has a fine hand, a correct eye,
refined perceptions, and can do almost anything but dance on the slack
wire. He is a fine billiard-player, plays at chess, sings when with his
intimate friends, and has considerable humor.
"Landseer is sensitive, delicate, with a fine hand for manipulation,--up
to all the _finesse_ of the art; has brushes of all peculiarities for
all difficulties; turns his picture into all manner of situation and
light; looks at it from between his legs,--and all with the strictly
critical view of discovering hidden defects, falsities of drawing, or
imperfections. See to what perfection he carries his perception of
surface, hair, silk, wool, rock, grass, foliage, distance, fog, mist,
smoke! how he paints the glazed or watery eye!"
A writer in the _London Daily News_ says: "Sir Edwin's method of
composition was remarkably like Scott's, except in the point of the
early rising of the latter. Landseer went late to bed, and rose very
late, coming down to breakfast at noon; but he had been composing
perhaps for hours. Scott declared that the most fertile moments for
resources, in invention especially, were those between sleeping and
waking, or rather before opening the eyes from sleep, while the brain
was wide awake. This, much prolonged, was Landseer's time for composing
his pictures. His conception once complete, nothing could exceed the
rapidity of his execution."
In 1840, at the country house of Mr. William Wells, Landseer had his
first violent illness associated with severe depression, to which
attacks he was subject all the rest of his life. He went abroad for a
time, travelling in France, Switzerland, and Austria, but he was
constantly longing for his studio, where, he said, "his works were
starving for him."
"Coming events cast their shadows before them," sometimes called "The
Challenge," a vigorous stag bellowing his defiance to hunters or other
animals of his kind; "Shoeing," which has been engraved many times, the
mare, Old Betty, belonging to his friend Mr. Jacob Bell; and "The Otter
Speared," a huntsman surrounded by yelping dogs, while he uplifts a poor
otter on his spear, were all exhibited in 1844, and won great praise.
From Sir Edwin's sporting-scenes many persons gained the impression that
he was a keen sportsman, which was not the case. Ewen Cameron, an old
forest keeper of Glencoe, who for more than twenty-four years
accompanied Landseer with the sketch-book and gun, tells how the
highland gillies were annoyed when a magnificent stag came bounding
toward them, and Sir Edwin hastily thrust his gun into their hands,
saying, "Here! take! take this!" while he pulled out his book and began
to sketch. They murmured greatly in Gaelic, but, says Cameron, "Sir
Edwin must have had some Gaelic in him, for he was _that angry_ for the
rest of the day, it made them very careful of speaking Gaelic in his
hearing after."
The companion pictures "Peace" and "War," painted in 1846--the former a
beautiful scene on a cliff overlooking Dover harbor, the latter a ruined
cottage with a dying horse and dead rider near the door--were sold to
Mr. Vernon for seventy-five hundred dollars. The publishers of the
engravings from these pictures paid Landseer fifteen thousand dollars
for them. "The Stag at Bay," belonging to the Marquis of Breadalbane,
one of Landseer's strongest pictures, appeared the same year.
In 1848, "A Random Shot," one of the artist's most pathetic pictures,
was painted. Stephens thus describes it: "It is a snow piece, the scene
high on the mountain, whose most distant ridges rise above the mist. The
snow lies smooth; and for miles, so far as the eye can penetrate the
vapor, there is nothing but snow, which covers, but does not hide, the
shapes of the hilltops. A few footprints show that a doe has come
hither, attracted, doubtless, by her knowledge of a pool of unfrozen
water which would assuage her thirst. Some careless shooter, firing into
a herd of deer, had hit the doe, whose fawn was with her, and, mortally
wounded, she came to die; the poor fawn had followed. There the victim
fell; there the innocent one strove, long after the mothers form was
cold, to obtain milk where an unfailing source had been. The mother has
fallen on her side; the long limbs, that once went so swiftly, are
useless, and the last breath of her nostrils has melted the snow, so
that, stained with her blood, the water trickled downwards until it
froze again."
Monkhouse says, in his "Landseer Studies": "He painted dogs and deer as
no man ever painted them before; he inspired one with a humor and both
with a poetry beyond all parallel in art; he added to this a feeling for
the grandeur and sublimity of nature, which gave to his pictures a charm
and a sentiment which all can feel; he never painted anything false or
ignoble, vulgar or unmanly; he won as an artist purely the affection and
admiration of a whole people as scarcely any man, _not_ a poet, or a
soldier, or a statesman, or a philosopher, has ever won them before....
"Landseer may be said to have mastered other animals, but the deer
mastered him. He raised dogs almost to the scale of humanity, but deer
raised him to a level of higher being. His love for the deer may not
have been so deep, but it was more elevating, less self-regarding, and
it ended at last in stimulating his imagination to produce pictures
deeper in thought and more awful in sentiment than any attempted by an
animal painter before."
A writer in _Cornhill_ says: "Landseer's perceptions of character were
remarkably acute. Not only did he know what was passing in the hearts of
dogs, but he could read pretty closely into those of men and women also.
The love of truth was an instinct with him; his common phrase about
those he estimated highly was that 'they had the true ring.' This was
most applicable to himself; there was no alloy in his metal; he was true
to himself and to others. This was proved in many passages of his life,
when nearly submerged by those disappointments and troubles which are
more especially felt by sensitive organizations such as that which it
was his fortune--or misfortune--to possess.
"It was a pity that Landseer, who might have done so much for the good
of the animal kind, never wrote on the subject of their treatment. He
had a strong feeling against the way some dogs are tied up, only allowed
their freedom now and then. He used to say a man would fare better tied
up than a dog, because the former can take his coat off, but a dog lives
in his forever. He declared a tied-up dog, without daily exercise, goes
mad, or dies, in three years.
"His wonderful power over dogs is well known. An illustrious lady asked
him how it was that he gained his knowledge. 'By peeping into their
hearts, ma'am,' was his answer. I remember once being wonderfully struck
with the mesmeric attraction he possessed with them. A large party of
his friends were with him at his house in St. John's Wood; his servant
opened the door; three or four dogs rushed in, one a very fierce-looking
mastiff. The ladies recoiled, but there was no fear; the creature
bounded up to Landseer, treated him like an old friend, with most
expansive demonstrations of delight. Some one remarking 'how fond the
dog seemed of him,' he said, 'I never saw it before in my life.'
"Would that horse-trainers could have learned from him how horses could
be broken in or trained more easily by kindness than by cruelty. Once
when visiting him he came in from his meadow looking somewhat
dishevelled and tired. 'What have you been doing?' we asked him. 'Only
teaching some horses tricks for Astley's, and here is my whip,' he said,
showing us a piece of sugar in his hand. He said that breaking in horses
meant more often breaking their hearts, and robbing them of all their
spirit...."
In 1850, the "Dialogue of Waterloo" was produced, with the Duke of
Wellington and his daughter-in-law, the Marchioness Douro, on the
battlefield. It is said that eighteen thousand dollars were paid for the
copyright of this painting.
This year, Landseer was made a knight, at the age of forty-eight. The
next year, 1851, he painted the well-known "Monarch of the Glen." "The
Midsummer Night's Dream" of the same year, painted for the great
engineer, Isambard K. Brunel, who ordered a series of Shakespearian
subjects from different artists, at four hundred guineas each, was
afterwards sold to Earl Brownlow for fourteen thousand dollars.
In 1857, in "Scene in Brae-mar--Highland Deer," we have, says Stephens,
"the grandest stag which came from his hands. This was sold in 1868 for
four thousand guineas." "The Maid and the Magpie," painted for Jacob
Bell, and by him presented to the nation, appeared in 1858. The pretty
girl is about to milk a cow, but turns to listen to her lover, when a
magpie steals a silver spoon from one of the wooden shoes at her side.
In connection with this picture, M. F. Sweetser tells this incident:
"Sir Edwin once painted a picture for Jacob Bell for one hundred
guineas, which the latter soon afterwards sold for two thousand guineas.
Placing the latter amount in Landseer's bank, Mr. Bell narrated the
circumstance, suppressing both his own name and that of the purchaser,
and adding that the seller would not keep the money, but wanted another
picture painted for it. The master was so charmed with this generous act
that he said, 'Well, he shall have a good one.' And afterwards, pressing
Bell to tell him who his benefactor was, the latter exclaimed, in the
words of Nathan, the Israelite: 'I am the man.' The picture which
resulted was 'The Maid and the Magpie.'"
In 1860, "Flood in the Highlands," called by Stephens "probably the
strongest of all his pictures," was painted. He was now fifty-eight. "I
remember him," says Stephens, "during the painting of this picture, on
the Tuesday before it was sent to the Academy,--putting a few touches on
the canvas. He looked as if about to become old, although his age by no
means justified the notion; it was not that he had lost activity or
energy, or that his form had shrunk, for he moved as firmly and swiftly
as ever,--indeed he was rather demonstrative, stepping on and off the
platform in his studio with needless display,--and his form was stout
and well filled.
"Nevertheless, without seeming to be overworked, he did not look robust,
and he had a nervous way remarkable in so distinguished a man, one who
was usually by no means unconscious of himself, and yet, to those he
liked, full of kindness. The wide green shade which he wore above his
eyes projected straight from his forehead, and cast a large shadow on
his plump, somewhat livid features, and, in the shadow, one saw that his
eyes had suffered. The gray 'Tweed' suit, and its sober trim, a little
emphatically 'quiet,' marked the man; so did his stout, not fat nor
robust, figure; rapid movements, and utterances that glistened with
prompt remarks, sharp, concise, with quiet humor, but not seeking
occasions for wit, and imbued throughout with a perfect frankness,
distinguished the man."
In 1864, "Man proposes, God disposes," was painted, an Arctic incident
suggested by the finding of the relics of Sir John Franklin. The
purchaser of this picture, Sweetser says, paid Landseer twenty-five
hundred pounds for it.
In 1865, "The Connoisseurs" was painted, and presented by Sir Edwin to
the Prince of Wales. It represents two dogs looking over the shoulders
of the artist, while he makes a drawing. Monkhouse says: "The man
behind his work was seen through it,--sensitive, variously gifted,
manly, genial, tender-hearted, simple, and unaffected, a lover of
animals and children and humanity; and if any one wishes to see at a
glance nearly all we have written, let him look at his own portrait,
painted by himself, with a canine connoisseur on either side."
"Lady Godiva's Prayer," painted in 1866, was sold in 1874 for L3360, or
nearly seventeen thousand dollars. This year, Sir Edwin first appeared
as a sculptor, in a vigorous model of a "Stag at Bay." In 1867 his
bronze Lions were placed at the base of the Nelson monument in Trafalgar
Square, thus associating two great names. The government had
commissioned him to execute this work eight years before, in 1859, but
sickness and other matters had prevented. That this commission was a
care to him, is shown by a letter to a friend: "I have got trouble
enough; ten or twelve pictures about which I am tortured, and a large
national monument to complete.... If I am bothered about anything and
everything, no matter what, I know my head will not stand it much
longer."
Again he writes: "My health (or rather condition) is a mystery beyond
human intelligence. I sleep well seven hours, and awake tired and jaded,
and do not rally till after luncheon. J. L. came down yesterday and did
her best to cheer me.... I return to my own home in spite of a kind
invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone to meet Princess Louise at
breakfast."
"The Swannery invaded by Sea-Eagles" was one of Landseer's most notable
later works. "The Sick Monkey," painted in 1870, was purchased by Thomas
Baring for three thousand guineas, and bequeathed to Lord Northbrook,
the Viceroy of India.
When Sir Charles Eastlake died, the presidency of the Royal Academy was
urged upon Landseer, but he declined. He had become wealthy through his
painting, his property amounting to about one million two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars, which he left mostly to his brothers and
sisters.
Sir Edwin's life was now drawing to its close. Miss Mackey says, in
_Cornhill_, concerning his last long illness: "Was ever any one more
tenderly nursed and cared for? Those who had loved him in his bright
wealth of life now watched the long days one by one telling away its
treasure. He was very weak in body latterly, but sometimes he used to go
into the garden and walk round the paths, leaning on his sister's arm.
One beautiful spring morning, he looked up and said: 'I shall never see
the green leaves again;' but he did see them, Mrs. Mackenzie, his
sister, said. He lived through another spring. He used to lie in his
studio, where he would have liked to die. To the very end he did not
give up his work; but he used to go on, painting a little at a time,
faithful to his task.
"When he was almost at his worst, so some one told me, they gave him
his easel and his canvas, and left him alone in the studio, in the hope
that he might take up his work and forget his suffering. When they came
back, they found that he had painted the picture of a little lamb lying
beside a lion. This and 'The Font' were the last pictures ever painted
by that faithful hand.
"'The Font' is an allegory of all creeds and all created things coming
together into the light of truth. The Queen is the owner of 'The Font.'
She wrote to her old friend and expressed her admiration for it, and
asked to become the possessor. Her help and sympathy brightened the
sadness of those last days for him. It is well known that he appealed to
her once, when haunted by some painful apprehensions, and that her wise
and judicious kindness came to the help of his nurses. She sent him back
a message, bade him not be afraid, and to trust to those who were doing
their best for him, and in whom she herself had every confidence....
"He wished to die in his studio, his dear studio, for which he used to
long when he was away, and where he lay so long expecting the end; but
it was in his own room that he slept away. His brother was with him. His
old friend came into the room. He knew him and pressed his hand."
Landseer died on the morning of October 1, 1873, and was buried October
11, with distinguished honors, in St. Paul's Cathedral.