Man proposes, God disposes--The Connoisseurs--The Swannery invaded--Closing
Years--Death of Landseer 105
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
_From Etchings by Edwin Landseer and C. G. Lewis._
PAGE
1. DOGS WORRYING A FROG. Etched by Edwin Landseer (1822) xii
2. LOW LIFE. ” ” ” (1822) 7
3. A SHEPHERD’S DOG. ” ” ” (1824) 13
4. THE BEGGARS. ” ” ” (1824) 19
5. DONKEYS ON A COMMON. ” ” ” (1824) 25
6. FOUR IRISH GREYHOUNDS. ” ” ” (1825) _Front._
7. EAGLE AND RED DEER. ” ” ” (1825) 31
8. THE RABBIT WARREN. ” ” ” (1826) 37
9. RETURN FROM DEER-STALKING. ” ” ” (1826) 43
THE MOTHERS. Drawn by Edwin Landseer in 1837.
10. HIGHLAND NURSE. Etched by C. G. Lewis “ (1847) 49
11. MARE AND FOAL. ” ” ” (1847) 55
12. DOG AND PUPS. ” ” ” (1847) 61
13. COW AND CALF. ” ” ” (1847) 69
14. DONKEY AND FOAL. ” ” ” (1847) 77
15. GOAT AND KIDS. ” ” ” (1847) 85
16. SOW AND PIGS. ” ” ” (1847) 93
17. SHEEP AND LAMBS. ” ” ” (1847) 101
The head and tail pieces are from Etchings by Edwin Landseer for the
GAME CARD at Woburn Abbey (1825).
CHRONOLOGY OF EDWIN HENRY LANDSEER.
PAGE
1802. Born at 83, Queen Anne Street East 16
1812. Studied at Hampstead 17
1815. Exhibited pictures at Royal Academy 28
Attended Haydon’s Studio 32
1818. Exhibited “Fighting Dogs” 42
1822. Received a premium of £150 from the Directors of the British
Institution 51
1824. First visit to the Highlands 55
1825. Took the house in St. John’s Wood 58
1826. Made Associate of the Royal Academy 60
1830. Made Royal Academician 62
1850. Knighted 93
1859. Received the Commission for the Lions for the Nelson
Monument 108
1860. Exhibited “Flood in the Highlands” 100
1866. The “Lions” were placed in Trafalgar Square 108
1869. The Swannery invaded 108
1873. Died October 1st 112
Buried in St. Paul’s, October 11th 112
[Illustration: DOGS WORRYING A FROG (1822).]
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.
CHAPTER I.
ORIGIN AND PARENTAGE.
So much of the family history of this artist as it is needful to repeat,
or the reader will care to learn, may be briefly told: it begins with
his grandfather, who was a jeweller settled in London, where, in
1761,[2] his father, John Landseer, was born. The senior was on intimate
terms with Peter, father of the lawyer and politician, Sir Samuel
Romilly. Peter Romilly was descended from a distinguished French family,
the first of whom known in this country settled near London after the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and acquired a fortune as a
wax-bleacher. This Peter was a jeweller of note and wealth, established
in Frith Street, Soho, and it is probable that common interest in a
craft which is so closely allied to art had much to do with directing
the minds of John, and consequently those of his family, to design. It
is certain that in the early life of Sir Samuel Romilly he gave
considerable attention to painting and its sister studies--architecture,
and anatomy as applied to the arts. His biographer tells us that the
future lawyer attended the lectures delivered on these subjects by Dr.
William Hunter and James Barry at the Royal Academy, and doubtless those
which, as we shall presently see, John Landseer, his friend--for the
affection of the fathers was continued with the sons--pronounced with
noteworthy effect at the Royal Institution. These discourses of John
Landseer’s, as printed and published at a later date, and entitled
“Lectures on the Art of Engraving,” 1807, still supply the body of one
of the best text-books in our language on the principles and practice of
that art.
How John Landseer became an engraver may not be difficult to understand
when we recollect that the art which he fortunately illustrated, was,
for modern use at least, first exercised if not invented by a jeweller
and goldsmith, and that most of the early European artists in gold and
jewellery not only worked in their proper crafts, but, for the service
of the printing-press, incised silver and copper plates with the graver
and needle. From Holbein to Stothard, before and since their days, some
of the greatest artists have applied their genius to the designing of
jewellery. Hogarth engraved on household plate before he etched or cut
copper to immortal uses. As etchers, or autographic artists on metal,
both John Landseer and his son Edwin distinguished themselves.
Conversely, the best etchers have been and are painters, from Dürer, and
Rembrandt, and Van Dyck, to MM. Rajon and Palmer of our own day. The
etchings of our chief subject are among his least known yet most
admirable works; Thomas, Edwin’s senior, another son of John Landseer,
was one of the most eminent engravers of this age.
Observing the ability of his son John, Landseer the jeweller obtained
for him the assistance of William Byrne, one of the best instructors of
that period, who, with Hearne, had been engaged in the production of
“The Antiquities of Great Britain,” and singly, in preparing many
topographical works, such as “Views of the Lakes of Cumberland,” and
“Italian Scenery.” Sea-pieces by Vernet, landscapes by Both and Claude
Lorrain, Turner’s contributions to “Britannia Depicta,” and a fine “View
of Niagara,” by Wilson, occupied this venerable artist, who was one of
the ablest in his profession, and a pupil of Aliamet and Wille, as
Hearne, his partner in “The Antiquities,” had been a pupil of William
Woollett.[3]
William Byrne was one of those stout “out-siders” of the Royal Academy
who, with Woollett, Schiavonetti, Sharp, Hall, and Strange, refused to
place their names as candidates for the half-honours of the
Associateship to that body so long as the upper grade of Academicianship
in full was denied to members of their profession. Some of the more
eminent English engravers, among whose names that of Mr. John Pye is
distinct, held themselves aloof from the Academical body on this as well
as on other accounts. This exclusion of engravers from their full
professional honours had, as we shall see, great effect on the career of
John Landseer, and the law by which it was produced has only within the
last ten years been modified by the admission without reserve of Mr. S.
Cousins to the Academicianship, after he, with Mr. Doo, had passed
through the anomalous grade of Academician-Engravers, which seemed to
have been instituted in order to draw the line sharply between members
of their profession and those other artists who practised painting,
sculpture and architecture. This line was drawn with such emphasis that
Bartolozzi was elected, not as an engraver, but as a painter, he having
painted a picture in order to evade the law of the Academy. Byrne, like
his pupil, John Landseer, was earnest in charitable works for his
fellow-artists; thus, we find his name as one of the Directors of the
Society of Engravers for the benefit of poor professors of the art,
their widows and orphans. John Landseer was one of the founder-members
of the Artists’ Fund, and associated therein with the Schiavonettis,
Raimbach, and Heath, to whom as painters, Mulready, Mr. Linnell, and
others of good standing were joined. Mr. John Pye was among the most
active members of this society, its ablest expositor, and practically
its founder.
No artist among Englishmen, not even Turner, Stothard, Wilkie, nor
Hogarth himself, owed so much of his popular honours to engraving as
Edwin Landseer; in Mr. Thomas Landseer’s hands, and by the hands of
other skilful engravers, the pictures of the distinguished
animal-painter obtained a popularity which would otherwise be
impossible; and it may be said, with but little strain on the terms,
that the engravers have repaid his son for the devotion of John Landseer
to their art. Not only was the popularity of Sir Edwin immensely
extended by engravings, but the greater part of his fortune accrued by
means of copyrights and the sale of prints.
Having got over the early difficulties of his profession, the first
works of John Landseer were vignettes after De Loutherbourg’s
landscapes; intended, says the author of an excellent article in “The
Literary Gazette,” to which we are indebted for some of the facts of
this biography of the engraver, for the “Bible” of Macklin, the once
“great” publisher. These plates were produced in the heat of the contest
between Alderman Boydell and Macklin, who struggled which should employ
the ablest artists to paint for their respective ventures in engraving.
The “Shakespeare” of the former enthusiastic speculator is the best
known of these publications. To him, indirectly, we owe the
establishment of the now defunct British Institution, and all the
knowledge of ancient and modern art which it diffused during more than
sixty years.
One of Boydell’s efforts to establish his large venture secured the aid
of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was considered not only the ablest
portrait-painter of that day, but acceptable to the public as a producer
of historical and fancy subjects. As to the last, it is not too much to
state that the cost was thrown away. It would have been better for
Reynolds’s reputation if he had restricted himself to that mode of art
in which he was a master. It is said that a bank-note for fifty pounds
slipped in the hand of Sir Joshua had much to do in dispelling the
apathy with which he was supposed to regard the schemes of Boydell. This
statement may be believed by those who choose to do so, not by us.
Nevertheless, Reynolds did paint pictures for Boydell, and among these
was the famous “Puck,” which is noteworthy for producing the enormous
sum of 980 guineas when sold, with the Rogers Collection, to Earl
Fitzwilliam; Rogers bought it at Boydell’s sale for 215_l._ 5_s._ It is
now at Wentworth House, and very much faded. Boydell gave Reynolds 100
guineas for this painting, of which--when exhibited at the Royal Academy
in 1789, about the time John Landseer was working from De Loutherbourg’s
vignettes--Walpole wrote that it was “an ugly little imp, with some
character, sitting on a mushroom as big as a millstone.” Reynolds
likewise painted for Boydell “The Death of Cardinal Beaufort,” of which
there is a version in the Dulwich Gallery. For the former of these the
Earl of Egremont gave, at the publisher’s sale, 530_l._ 8_s._; Boydell
paid Reynolds 500 guineas for it, June 22, 1789. The well-known painting
of “The Witches meeting Macbeth” is noted in Reynolds’s ledger as “not
yet begun,” although, June 1786, the President received 500 guineas for
it. These were the three pictures produced by Reynolds for Boydell’s
“Shakespeare;” their painting is closely connected with our story.
In publishing large and boldly-illustrated works Boydell’s rival was
Macklin, who, as he contemplated a “Bible” of even greater pretensions
than those of his antagonist’s “Shakespeare,” needed the countenance of
the President of the Royal Academy as much as his aldermanic
antagonist.[4] Of Reynolds Macklin bought “Tuccia, the Vestal Virgin,”
an illustration of Gregory’s “Ode to Meditation,” for which he paid,
says Northcote, 300 guineas, though Reynolds’s ledger refers to the
receipt of 200 guineas only; Macklin bought for 500 guineas “The Holy
Family,” which is now in the National Gallery; and, for a still larger
sum,--which it would be difficult to ascertain, as the entry in
Reynolds’s ledger confuses it with the prices of various works, in all
more than two thousand pounds--a painting which is sometimes called
“Macklin’s Family Picture,” or “The Cottagers,” otherwise “The
Gleaners,” and represents an Arcadian scene, such as Macklin would have
rejoiced to realize as it might appear before the door of a cottage,
with the publisher, his wife, and their daughter seated in domestic
happiness, with Miss Potts,[5] a dear and beautiful friend of theirs,
[Illustration: _Low Life._]
standing with a sheaf of corn on her head; the last-named figure claims
the greatest interest from all who admire the works of the Landseers;
because, in a short time after the damsel sat to Sir Joshua in this
charming guise, she was married to John, the young engraver, and thus
became the mother of Thomas, Charles, Edwin Henry, and four daughters of
his name.[6] It is understood that John Landseer and Miss Potts were
first acquainted in the house of Macklin, and it is believed that the
marriage was, in more than a single sense, an artistic one. Bartolozzi
engraved, in 1794, the portrait of a Miss Emily Pott, after Reynolds, as
“Thais.” This was _not_ the lady now in question.
The introduction of these lovers to each other occurred, we believe,
through the employment of John Landseer by Macklin to execute plates for
his “Bible.” In these works, several of the best engravers of that time
were associated with him; among them Bromley, Heath, and Skelton. Not
long after this, that is, in 1792, we find John Landseer exhibiting at
the Royal Academy, the only year, we believe, ere he became an Associate
of that body, in which he vouchsafed to do so. His contribution was
“View from the Hermit’s Hole, Isle of Wight” (No. 541), and his address
was given at 83, Queen Anne Street East.[7] A few years later he was
occupied in the production of plates from drawings by Turner and
Ibbetson, styled “Views in the Isle of Wight,” a series which came to an
early end. John Landseer’s share of this work was confined to “Orchard
Bay,” “Shanklin Bay,” and “Freshwater Bay.” He engraved “High Torr,”
after Turner, for Whitaker’s “History of Richmondshire,” a very fine
specimen of his skill; this book was published by Longmans in 1823; and,
for “The Picturesque Tour in Italy,” he executed “The Cascade of Terni,”
which is one of Turner’s best pictures. These were, we believe, all
Landseer’s transcripts from the works of the great master of English
landscape art. His largest series of plates was styled “Twenty Views of
the South of Scotland,” and made after drawings by James Moore: another
group of engravings was executed from drawings of animals by the Dutch
masters, Rubens, Snyders, Rembrandt, and others; these plates show not
only his remarkable skill, but the current of his mind towards animal
subjects, such as his sons, Thomas and Edwin Henry, have pre-eminently
illustrated. In addition to the above we have “A Series of Engravings
illustrating those important events recorded in the Sacred Scriptures,”
“which have been selected from Raphael, &c., with critical notices,”
1833; and six plates to “Vates, or the Philosophy of Madness,” 1840.
Having disposed of our materials about the professional and family
lineage of the Landseers, it will be desirable, before entering upon the
chief subject of this text, to draw together all it is needful to state
of his very remarkable parent, the engraver and engravers’ champion. We
shall do so without regard to the chronological parallelism of their
lives; a course of treatment which admits simplicity of arrangement. The
births of three able sons are important facts in the history of any man
who might be so honoured in parentage. Thomas, the eldest son, was born,
we believe, in 1796; Charles, the second son, Aug. 2, 1799; Sir Edwin
Henry, in 1802; March 7th was the date given on his coffin-plate, but
there are doubts about this matter, even among the Landseer family.
Including the daughters, the names of this family ran thus in the order
of their births:--Jane, who married Mr. Charles Christmas, and died at
the birth of her first child; Thomas, Charles, Anna Maria, Edwin,
Jessica, i.e. the present Miss Landseer, and Emma, now Mrs. Mackenzie.
The last two survive.
According to the original constitution of the Academy, engravers had no
place in it. Thus they were denied the privilege of considering
themselves artists at all. This absurdity was not much reduced when, in
the third year of its existence, the body decided on admitting six
“Associate Engravers” as a distinct and inferior class.[8]
As we have thus noted, the position of engravers in the honour-bestowing
body of their profession had been anomalous, and beneath the pretences,
as well as the merits and reputations, of many distinguished men, who,
while not unwilling to join the academical association, declined to do
so on conditions which at once marked their alleged inferiority to the
professors of other branches of art, and placed them in a lower grade
than the painters, sculptors, and architects with whom, nevertheless,
they claimed to be equal. They complained especially, that, in addition
to the above-given sources of discontent, a law of the Academy
restricted them from more than one of the privileges and advantages of
the exhibitions:--1st, of that law which declared that “each
Associate-Engraver shall have the _liberty_ [an unfortunate form of
expression] of exhibiting two prints, either compositions of his own, or
engravings from other masters.” Thus, while other members were entitled
to contribute eight pictures, sculptures, or what not, without
limitation as to the size of each example, the engravers might exhibit
not more than two, which, by the very conditions under which they were
produced, must be small. 2ndly, the engravers objected to the concluding
section of the same law, which ran thus: “and these shall be the only
prints admitted to the Royal Exhibition.” By these measures the
engravers were affected, and their art depreciated. This state of things
has been mended now, and engravers are admitted to the full academical
honours. The history of the earliest phases of the contest, and a
statement of the case are in Mr. John Pye’s “Patronage of British Art,”
where the exertions of John Landseer and others are described. It is
strange that although this measure of justice has been vouchsafed, the
lots of honour fell to two of the staunchest “outsiders” who refused to
become candidates for the Associateship until the standing of their
profession was recognized: while John Landseer remained an Associate for
nearly fifty years, and died without further distinction in 1852, but
five years before the election of Mr. Cousins. Mr. Doo’s election
occurred the next year after that of Mr. Cousins. The latter became an
Associate thirty years later than John Landseer; the former was an
Associate but one year, being elected A.R.A. in 1856, and R.A. in 1857.
Mr. Cousins resigned his R.A.ship, and became a Retired Royal
Academician in 1879. The first to accept honour was John Landseer.
It was with the intention of putting the true position of the engraver’s
art and its professors before the world, and of doing so in the most
effectual fashion, that John Landseer, in 1806, delivered lectures on
engraving to large audiences at the Royal Institution, and thus laid out
those broad and high views of art for which he has been justly honoured.
He defined engraving as a species of sculpture performed by incision,
and, by defending that view with spirit and skill, became the champion
of his profession. Mr. H. Crabb Robinson described John Landseer’s
lecturing on “The Philosophy of Art,” at a later occasion, December 5,
1813, at the Surrey Institution. “He is animated in his style,” said Mr.
Robinson, “but his animation is produced by indulgence in sarcasms and
in emphatic diction. He pronounces his words in _italics_, and by
colouring strongly he produces an effect easily.”[9] In the year in
which the lectures on engraving were delivered, John Landseer was
elected A.-E.R.A., under protest, as it were, from himself, that he
received the distinction with a view to more effective action in favour
of his fellow-sufferers. In furtherance of this object he, with very
little effect, presented a memorial to the Academicians, and, as he
said, experienced from Sir Martin Archer Shee and others “a very great
deal of illiberality, and was finally repulsed in a most ungracious
way.”[10] After this, says the author of a biography of John
Landseer,[11] the disappointment preyed upon his mind so deeply that he
turned his attention from the practice of his profession to the study of
archæology. This statement requires a considerable quantity of salt. No
doubt this failure of so many hopes and efforts embittered his memory
for a long time. It is said, though, as Mr. Pye told us, it would be
difficult to verify the assertion, that an Associate-Engravership in the
total number of six, which became vacant on the death of John Brown, in
1801, remained vacant because no outsider offered himself until
Landseer’s election in 1806. There were only five such members of the
Academy during the interval in question, and Val. Green, Collyer, James
Heath, Anker Smith, and James Fittler were tenants of the five posts.
The intensity of professional feeling on the subject may be surmised
from this fact.
There is this much to be said about John Landseer’s alleged neglect of
his own profession for the studies of an archæologist: he published
“Observations on the Engraved Gems brought from Babylon to England by
Abraham Lockett, Esq., considered with reference to Scripture History;”
but this was not done until 1817, or ten years after the memorializing
of the Royal Academy. The object of this work was to show that
Babylonian cylinders, the “gems” in question, were not used as talismans
or amulets, but as signets of monarchs or princes--a conclusion which is
not far from the now accepted truth. He next issued “Sabæan Researches,”
1823, a work founded on remains brought from “Babylon,” by the
above-named traveller, comprising letters on antiquities, and lectures
delivered at the Royal Institution. These works have been superseded by
later ones, and more scientific studies than were to be expected from an
author who had been bred to another profession. He likewise published a
discursive “Description of Fifty of the Earliest Pictures in the
National Gallery,” 1834. He produced twenty plates by way of
contribution to the “Antiquities of Dacca” (begun in 1816), a work which
was never completed; this imperfectness likewise marked that book on the
National Gallery which bears “End of Vol. I.” by way of “Finis,” to a
tome which has no successor. He issued “The Review of Publications of
Art,” 1808, a periodical of trenchant quality, but brief career; and he
promoted a second periodical styled “The Probe,” 1837, which seemed--for
it ran to not more than half-a-dozen numbers--designed to oppose the
then recently-established “Art-Union” journal. The chief task of his
later years was engraving his son Edwin’s famous picture of “The Dogs of
St. Bernard,” on which he wrote a small explanatory pamphlet styled
“Some Account of the Dogs and the Pass of St. Bernard.” In 1826 he was
appointed one of the “Engravers to his Majesty.” Later, he exhibited at
the Royal Academy some studies in water-colours from so-called Druidical
Temples. He died on the 29th of February, 1852, aged eighty-three. It is
a curious fact that on his death, and the vacancy caused in the Academy
by that event, Leslie proposed that the disabilities of engravers should
be removed.
The chief work of John Landseer was the bringing-up of his sons; in this
he was thoroughly successful, and worthy of more
[Illustration: _The Highland Shepherd’s Dog._]
honour than is given to one who struggled valiantly towards an unselfish
end. This process of education must have been common to all the objects
of attention and affection. As to the eldest son, but for his admirable
skill with the burin, feeling for animal character, and pathetic
treatment of his brother’s pictures, we should have known comparatively
little about Sir Edwin or his works. The thousands who go to
exhibitions, public galleries, and private collections, are few compared
with those who day by day study the learned prints for which we are
indebted to the skilful hand of Mr. Thomas Landseer. This engraver,
trained as a draughtsman and anatomist under the advice of Haydon, and
to work on copper under his father, generally exercised his craft in
mezzotint, combining with this mode a considerable proportion of
etching, because that process is better adapted to the subjects he
affected than the more severe mode of line-engraving. He executed,
nevertheless, plates in the “line manner.” To him was attributed a
cartoon named “Samson forgives Delilah,” No. 34, in the exhibition of
such works at Westminster Hall, in 1843. His first work in copper was a
“Study of the Head of a Sibyl,” after Haydon, 1816. He engraved a
considerable series of early designs by his brother Edwin in “The
Sporting Magazine,” 1823-6, which, including original works of his own
in the same periodical, were afterwards collected in a folio volume, and
published separately as “Annals of Sporting.” “The Sportsman’s Annual,”
1836, owed much to the brothers Edwin and Thomas; “Twenty Engravings of
Lions, Panthers, &c.,” 4º., 1823, was likewise so composed, and
comprises many excellent specimens of the united arts of the authors.
“Stories about Dogs,” 16º., 1864, and “Stories illustrative of Instinct
of Animals,” 16º., 1864, are amusing books for juvenile students, and
happily illustrated in their way. Probably his most important work, not
a production of his brother’s, is the fine mezzotint of Mdlle. Rosa
Bonheur’s “Horse Fair.” This, with the series of etchings of monkeys
styled “Monkeyana, or Men in Miniature,” which he designed, drew, and
etched throughout, secured the reputation of Thomas Landseer, both as an
original humourist and a translator of the works of others. He was
elected an “Associate-Engraver of the New Class” in the Royal Academy in
1867, after he had been before the public during more than fifty years.
In 1873 he became an “Associate-Engraver.” In 1876 he was merged with
the “A.R.A’s.,” and this distinction was abolished. This artist died on
the 20th of January, 1880. He published “Characteristic Sketches of
Animals,” “Drawn from the life and engraved by T. L.,” 1832, Ten
Etchings, illustrative of “The Devil’s Walk,” 1831, “Flowers of
Anecdote,” with etchings, 1829, and in 1871, “Life and Letters of
William Bewick,” a most readable and excellent book, that is full of
anecdotes and experiences. Most of the original sketches in pencil for
“Monkeyana” are in the British Museum.
As the life of Mr. Charles Landseer does not come within the scope of
our purpose in this text, it will be needless to say more about his
career than that he became an exhibitor at the Royal Academy in 1828.
Before this he travelled in the suite of Lord Stuart de Rothesay in
Portugal and to Rio de Janeiro, where he made a large number of studies
and sketches, which have been described with admiration. He was elected
A.R.A. in 1837; R.A. in 1845; Keeper in 1851. This office Mr. C.
Landseer, having held it for an unusually long period, resigned in 1871;
he died July 22, 1879, leaving an ample fortune, which somewhat
unexpectedly, it is said, accrued to him as the residuary legatee of his
brother Sir Edwin. Mr. C. Landseer was a large donor to the artists’
benevolent societies; 10,000_l._ fell to the Royal Academy for the
“Landseer Scholarships,” as appointed and awarded by the President and
Council. Miss Landseer (Mrs. C. Christmas) exhibited occasionally at the
Royal Academy and British Institution. The name of H. and Henry Landseer
frequently appears in the like manner; this gentleman was a brother of
John Landseer, a frequent contributor to the Exhibitions, especially to
that of the Society of British Artists. Edwin Henry Landseer bore the
second name, in honour of his uncle. At one period it was, at least
occasionally, his practice to use all three of these names. He made a
sketch of Count D’Orsay’s horse, and signed it “E. H. L.,” and, in reply
to a question why he did this, said that his second name was Henry, but,
as his father had said one name was enough, he had given up using it;
(see the Catalogue of the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition, 1874, p. 30.)
Miss Jessie Landseer is a painter of considerable ability, and an
engraver, who etched some of her brother Edwin’s works. She is now,
1880, the sole bearer of the name of Landseer in the family. Mrs.
Mackenzie, her sister, to whom I am much indebted for materials used in
this text, practised art with characteristic success. At the British
Institution Exhibitions of 1821, 1822, and 1823, Miss Landseer, Mr. E.
Landseer, and Mr. H. Landseer appeared together.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
A.D. 1802 TO A.D. 1817.
EDWIN HENRY LANDSEER--EARLY DRAWINGS--PICTURES OF DOGS--HAYDON’S
STUDIO--MR. RUSKIN’S CRITICISM.
Edwin Henry Landseer was, as stated above, born in 1802--the year before
another animal painter of modern note, Mr. T. S. Cooper--and that event
happened at his father’s house, No. 83,[12] Queen Anne Street East (not
Turner’s Queen Anne Street), and consequently at his death he was in his
seventy-second year. For the greater part of this long period he
retained far more health and activity than are commonly vouchsafed to
those who pass the allotted term of human life. How that life was
spent, what are the pictures he produced, and under what circumstances
they were executed, I have now, to the best of my means, to inquire and
detail. The best living authority avers that our subject was by no means
diligent at school, in fact, he was “always running away from his
teachers, and always drawing.” His artistic education was begun by his
father at a very early age, but not before natural ability had made
itself evident in sketching and drawing. Training of the best sort was
soon afforded by the judicious care of John Landseer, who directed his
son’s practice, after the mode of the greatest masters, to Nature, so
that “as soon as he could hold a pencil with some steadiness,” says Mr.
R. N. Wornum, the biographer of Landseer in the “English Cyclopædia,”
the boy was sent or accompanied into the fields to draw from sheep,
goats, and donkeys; and especially did he find space for this mode of
study on Hampstead Heath, where the creatures grazed or stood as nearly
in a state of nature as civilization permits to any of their kind in
England; and certainly in that condition of their existence which is
familiar to us. The following account, obligingly furnished to me by the
late Miss Meteyard, at once confirms and illustrates this early
history:--
“In 1849--1850 the Howitts resided in Avenue Road, St. John’s Wood,
and the father of Edwin Landseer no great way off. William Howitt
and Mr. John Landseer being well acquainted, and often meeting in
their walks, would go and return together; sometimes one way,
sometimes another, but generally in the direction of Hampstead. One
evening, in passing along the Finchley Road towards Child’s Hill,
Mr. Landseer stayed by a stile of ancient look, and said to his
friend, ‘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 favourite 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 favourite 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 criticize 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.’
“Those acquainted with Hampstead and its environs will know these
two fields at once. They lie nearly opposite what is now the
Finchley Road Station of the North London Railway, and open out
into West End Lane, a little below Frognal and the parish church.
The old oak is still standing, though in withered decrepitude.[13]
Indeed, till almost recent years, this was a region of oak-trees,
and the whole neighbourhood was picturesque in the extreme. But
much of this beauty is now effaced.
“Belonging to Sir John Maryon Wilson, Lord of the Manor of
Hampstead, and abutting the corner of West End Lane, these fields
will, at no late date, be covered with ‘villas’ and other
buildings. But the fact that the site was Edwin Landseer’s _first
studio_ may be preserved by in some manner naming it after the
illustrious painter.
“This interesting fact was told me by Mr. Howitt whilst walking
through these fields about twenty years ago.
“ELIZA METEYARD.”
The representation of animals in that mode of life in which the
creatures existed, is that practice which, being best understood by the
common world, would best sustain the objects of an artist who had to do
with so many beasts which were but semi-barbarous, and not in a state of
natural fierceness and wildness. The reader who wishes to see what was
the merit of studies thus pursued, is referred to the South Kensington
Museum, British Art Collection, where a series of nine drawings,
executed at a very early period of his life by Edwin Landseer, and duly
marked with the dates of their production, will not alone evoke
admiration for the nature-given ability of the draughtsman, but testify,
that with such ability to back the practice his father devised, the son
was fortunate in receiving that father’s counsel. Further, the observer
will note how zealously the boy-pupil bent his mind to the task with all
the pleasantness which attends the exercise of natural powers.
[Illustration: _The Beggar._]
This is enforced by Miss Meteyard’s communication. Be it remembered that
even such natural ability as that of Landseer was not trained without
strenuous and long-continued labours.[14] The same course was pursued by
him in painting, and he never, during this early stage, drew without
nature; not, probably, carrying the principle of study in this fashion
to the virtuous excess of William Henry Hunt, his contemporary, of whom
it is said that he would not draw a pin without a model; a saying which
implies the devotion of the man to truth, rather than that he refused to
avail himself of his own experience. That the one would not paint a pin
without a model is as true as that the other painted dogs best because
he relied on nature from the first, and succeeded most in painting them
while he relied most on nature. The drawings and sketches which are
referred to were reserved by John Landseer from a much larger number of
his son’s productions, and by means of notes in that father’s
hand--notes written in affectionate pride, indicating that some of them
were made when the boy was but five years old--declare the progress and
precocity of their subject; so that we see how in the fifth year of his
age Landseer drew well, and thoroughly studied animal character and
humour.[15]
Landseer’s precocity exceeded that of Lucas van Leyden, one of the great
artists whose early skill has made them wonderful, and added interest
to their after-glory. Lucas van Leyden etched designs of his own when he
was but nine years of age. When he was fourteen appeared his famous
print of Mahomet killing Sergius the Monk. When Van Leyden was twelve he
painted “St. Hubert,” thereby beating Edwin Landseer in pictorial
progress, if not in precocity of draughtsmanship. To have been so nearly
neck-and-neck in early development with such a magnificent genius as
that of Lucas van Leyden, and to have maintained that remarkable
position through a long life, was a singular fortune. Van Leyden,
however, died at thirty-nine years of age. Sir Edwin’s years attained to
nearly double that period.
At the sale of Mr. M. W. Simpson’s pictures, in 1848 (Mr. Simpson was an
early friend and patron of Landseer’s), a considerable number of the
artist’s youthful productions were disposed of, many of which were, we
believe, painted at about this period of his career. Of those probably
executed a little later, but which for convenience sake we may as well
refer to here, if it were but to declare how these pictures have risen
in value, the following were examples:--“A Scotch Terrier with a Rat in
his mouth,” sold for, although not more than four inches by five inches,
sixty-eight guineas, and would now, twenty-five years later, produce
treble that sum. This work has been engraved, we believe, by Mr. T.
Landseer. “Waiting for Orders,” a full length portrait of Mr. Simpson’s
coachman, sold for thirty-two guineas. This was not that portrait of a
deer-hound which is now called “Waiting,” and was engraved by J. C.
Webb. “The Paddock,” an old chestnut horse, and a white Scotch terrier
near it, with a distant view of Windsor Castle, sold for one hundred
guineas. If this could happen twenty-five years ago, with regard to
unexhibited pictures of comparatively small account, what could be
expected now, although the artist was most prolific, and not, like
Mulready, accustomed to confine his labours to a few canvases or panels?
For this question of the comparative prices of old and later pictures
by Landseer we shall enable the reader to form an answer for himself ere
our task is complete.
Among the minor works of the painter, none have so much interest as
examples of the etchings which were produced when he was little more
than an infant. The inherent ability of the man’s mind is more
distinctly and decidedly marked in these comparatively unimportant works
than in those which received the benefit of years of study and of craft,
and were produced when his natural powers had been consummated by
practice upon a score of pictures, being the fruits of an intelligence
developed to the utmost in that way which these very etchings, more than
any other means, declare to be proper, apt and natural to it. Edwin
Landseer continued the practice of etching, and made the results of
these labours proportionately as valuable and meritorious as his
pictures. It is not, however, to the products of his perfected skill
that we now address our remarks, so much as to the works of his infancy,
boyhood, and youth. As some of these juvenile productions are very rare,
and consequently little studied, although much admired in artistic
circles, our readers will not be sorry to have an account of a
collection of them, including works duly annotated with the age, of the
artist at the time they were executed.[16]
The first etching on our list is said to be also that which was produced
before all others by “Master E. Landseer,” and to have been wrought five
years ere he appeared in the Royal Academy display as an “Honorary
Exhibitor;” doubtless the youngest of his class before or since that
date. It was done in his eighth year, and one plate comprises several
subjects, thus:--1. The Head of an Ass; which, by the way, is not
thoroughly understood, if one may so write of the production of so
capable an artist; for the head is not well articulated with the neck,
or complete in drawing as to placing the eyes on a level with each
other. Yet it is full of truth in the rendering of texture and
expression, as the beast bites sideways at the large-leaved herbage; his
ears are standing well above his head, and one eye is turned towards us
in a very asinine fashion, steadfastly watching, while the other is
directed downwards as the animal’s wrenching nibble goes on. 2. Is the
Head of a Shorthorned Sheep, with the exact expression of nature in its
ever mobile and quivering lips; the eye is that of the timid creature,
yet seems to meditate. The foreshortening of the horns is astonishing as
the workmanship of a child-draughtsman. 3. Is the Head of a Sheep in the
act of browsing; this calls for no remark, except that of general
admiration for its excellent drawing. 4. Is the Head, on a larger scale
than the others, of a long-tusked, deep-snouted Boar, while dozing in
the sun. Besides these, and probably of even earlier origin, is a not
very well-drawn Head of a Sheep in full-face; here the eyes are a little
out of drawing. On this account, although the defect may be due to the
greater difficulty of the subject when so placed, we are inclined to
believe this etching to be more remote in execution than the
above-described examples, which are, as the productions of a boy of
eight years of age, so far wonderful that they are really better drawn
and more truly expressive than the work of most adult artists. On the
same plate with the sheep’s head in front view is (1) a Donkey, at full
length, so to say, _i.e._, standing on all fours, and biting at his
leg--a capital study, full of action and spirit; (2) a Donkey and her
Foal.
On another plate are the heads of a lion and tiger (see the last note),
in which the differing characters of the beasts are given with
marvellous craft, that would honour 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. Then
comes a drawing of a young bull, wrought by Edwin Landseer at nine
years of age, and etched by his by no means very distant senior brother
Thomas; this brute’s walk, the peculiar shouldering, lounging way of his
kind, rolling from shoulder to shoulder, is here in perfection; the bull
whisks his tail lightly from side to side.
Next is another specimen, but on a larger scale than those which are
above described. It exhibits an extraordinarily finely drawn bull, the
foreshortening and handling of whose form is perfect; his expression is
that of a rigid conventionalist--for bulls are not unlike men in these
matters of temperament--a thoroughly old-fashioned John Bull. Behind
this is a foreshortened view of a horse reclining, and, in the distance
of the field, which supplies a landscape-background to the composition,
is a goat. The work of the young artist’s tenth year shows great
progress to have been made, for he wrought the whole design, and
entirely etched the next plate, which represents two groups of cattle
placed one above the other on the paper, which is disposed, as artists
say, upright-fashion, and of about the size and proportion of a large
octavo book. In the lower section is the representation of a ponderous
beast, couched at ease, yet with all his strength drawn together by the
attitude of resting with his limbs beneath his bulky body; he has
downward-pointing horns. He is a surly “_oldish_” bull, who breathes the
breath of content in summer, but with possibilities of fury in his
irritable moodiness; not a stupid bull, although terrible when
exasperated; he is evidently apt to lose his temper on slight occasions.
Behind this surly monster stands an intensely stupid brute, one who is
evidently given up to all sorts of self-indulgences, and who in every
possible fashion spoils himself; his countenance is absolutely besotted;
he has a hog-like air, and his very tail hangs heavily straight down
from his back; with these is grouped a maternal cow, who is large, if
not like Byron’s “Dudu,” “languishing and lazy.”
Executed in the same year of the draughtsman’s life we have another
group, drawn on the same plate with the above-named studies of animals.
This is a bovine family. Maternity itself appears in the shape of a
stumpy-footed cow; fatherhood, in the portly figure of a bull whose knit
brows and self-satisfied look about his chaps, his broad bowed neck and
vast chest, are honoured by imitation in the little bull-calf which
reclines before its parents, ruminating, if not meditating, and “the
picture of his father.” Produced at about the same period as the last is
an admirable etching of a cow and bull-calf. The former, by the leanness
of her haunches and flanks, shows the stress of the debt of milk she is
paying to the latter, or to the more exacting pail: on her back a ridge
of spines is distinct; large aspiring promontories of bone crop up in
the rearward regions of the milky mother, not unlike, in their
ruggedness and the slopes which form their sides, the steep forms of
granite mountains as they are thrust through sedimentary deposits of a
later date. At her feet lies the blunt-nosed bull-calf of her heart.
Next, in the same collection, and said to be of still earlier origin,
comes a much larger production, etched by Mr. Thomas Landseer from a
drawing by his brother, our subject. This noble plate represents an
Alpine mastiff of the great St. Bernard breed, which had been in the
second decade of this century imported to this country by a gentleman of
Liverpool.[17]
[Illustration: _The Common in Winter._]
An inscription at the foot of the plate informs us that, at a year old,
this magnificent creature was six feet four inches long; and, at the
middle of his back, stood two feet seven inches in height. The note in
question adds that the animals of this breed are employed by the
fraternity of Mont St. Bernard, not only in the rescue of travellers
from snowdrifts, in which the latter may have been engulfed, but as
beasts of burthen, and that they are capable of carrying a
hundredweight of provisions from the town on which the monks rely, to
the hospice, a distance of eighteen miles. The drawing was done by Sir
Edwin Landseer when he was about thirteen years of age, that is, in the
year 1815.
It is really one of the finest drawings of a dog that has ever been
produced; we do not think that even the artist at any time surpassed its
noble workmanship. In its form are reproduced all the characteristics of
such a beast. 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. This St. Bernard dog has a great hanging jowl and
finely formed nose; which last, as is commonly the case with creatures
whose sense of smell is delicate, tapers slightly to the nostrils. The
chest is broad and square, but by no means heavy; the forelegs are
brawny, yet elegant, with broad and firmly placed feet. The body is
comparatively long and rather slender in its contours, the belly is
hollow, and the hind legs nervously lean and remarkably muscular.
Withal, this beast has a grave and dignified walk which is pleasant to
see.
Next, and returning to early examples in the same collection, we have an
etching of some sheep, “Southdowns,” which is comparatively
unsuccessful. After this comes the “Head of a Ram,” of about half
life-size, with doubly voluted horns, pointing downwards. To an artist’s
eyes, or those of one who is capable of truly appreciating this superb
drawing, the real proof of the draughtsman’s power is to be seen in the
foreshortening of the twisted and wreathed horns; the execution of these
parts is marvellous for precision and “clearness” of line, for the
elaborate involuting of the protuberances, and the manner in which
perspective of very delicate and intricate nature has been expressed by
the deft craftsmanship.
A Group of Lions in a hollow on a mountain side supplied the subject of
the next example in our series of illustrations. Etched by Thomas
Landseer is a copy of a retriever lying down, and behind him another
dog, whose features recall “Brutus,” the artist’s very old
favourite,[18] and the subject of several works by him, to one of which
we elsewhere more particularly allude. Next are heads of a pointer and a
spaniel, both of great beauty as to the execution--an extraordinarily
brilliant production of the engraver. Here we shall place the fore-part
of a tiger, crouching and seeking prey. Finally, two admirable prints,
the one representing a gaunt French hog, standing munching before its
sty, and having an elaborate landscape background. A plate of this was
published with a slight modification, and styled “A French Hog, the
property of Mr. Bacon, of the Black Boy Inn, near Chelmsford.” By way of
fellow appeared “An English Hog.” The French Hog is a ludicrous beast,
antithetical to its companion subject, and one of the most uncouth,
long-legged, swift-looking, sharp-nosed, flat-sided, hollow-bellied of
animals, covered with bristles that recall a porcupine’s quills, which
are gathered in lines on his flanks, and project from his limbs like
ragged old thatch on a ruined cottage roof. The English Boar looks a
mere round barrel of lard mounted on two pairs of wonderfully short
legs, with a head stuck on one of its ends, and a tail attached to the
upper part of the other.[19]
Almost every place where animals might be seen to advantage was visited
by Edwin Landseer during this period, the Tower among them. At this
time was observed the incident which furnished a capital subject of “a
lion’s and a dog’s friendship,” which is reproduced, with three others,
in Thomas Landseer’s book, “Twenty Engravings of Lions, Panthers, &c.”
The story is briefly this: a lioness, an orphan of course, had been
captured in very early cub-hood and brought on board ship, and was
suckled by a bitch, for whom, although she soon surpassed her nurse in
size and strength, she ever retained the utmost affection, and some
respect. The attached couple being shown in Exeter Change menagerie,
attracted much admiration, and were the source of delight to thousands.
The other three works by Edwin Landseer in this collection are “A Combat
between a Lion, Tiger, and a Panther, contending for a dead Fawn,” “A
Tiger tearing the carcase of an Indian Bullock,” and “The Frontispiece.”
Spilsbury, an artist of considerable ability, contributed modifications
of designs by Rubens, Rembrandt, Stubbs, and others; there is likewise
one by T. Landseer, representing “A Tigress defending her Cubs from a
Snake.”
Ere this period of his studies was past, “Master Edwin Landseer”
justified so much public interest that his doings were chronicled by his
father; and in Elmes’s well-known “Annals of Art” he was referred to as
a promising student. Some of his early studies appeared in “The Sporting
Magazine,” whence they were, as stated above, collected and republished.
Incessantly he drew and painted from nature, without reference to
copies; in this was the source of his knowledge of life, truth in
design, and mastery of the forms of animals, and of their varied
coverings.
The first appearance of the painter, then only thirteen years of age,
occurred in 1815, and is thus recorded in the Catalogue of the Royal
Academy Exhibition of that year: “_Master E. Landseer, H.; 33, Foley
Street_.”[20] The subjects of the pictures contributed to the annual
gatherings of works of art indicate very clearly what had been the
youthful painter’s studies. As is not commonly the wont of young
artists, “Master Edwin Landseer” did not aspire to a subject. Nothing
heroic, pathetic, or dramatic came from his easel at that date, but
simply two portraits of animals. They are thus described:--“No. 443.
Portrait of a Mule, the property of W. H. Simpson, Esq., of Beleigh
Grange, Essex;” and, “No. 584. Portraits of a Pointer Bitch and Puppy.”
The latter was painted for the owner of the mule, and both pictures
appeared among those early works of Sir Edwin’s which were, as before
stated, sold in 1848, after the death of Mr. Simpson. James Ward, being
essentially a cattle painter, these examples are important, because they
are the first seriously studied pictures by the first English painter
who, since Hogarth, had painted a dog with due regard to individuality
and character, to say nothing of pathos and dramatic expressiveness,
passion, energy, and humour. Hogarth had painted several dogs with
admirable skill, _e. g._, the telling portrait of “Trump” in his own
likeness, now in the National Gallery, and there are dogs in “A Rake’s
Progress.” John Wooton was the fashionable dog painter of Hogarth’s day,
who did many canine portraits, notably that of Horace Walpole’s
“Patapan,” as recorded in his master’s letter to Mann, Ap. 25, 1743.
Stubbs painted several capital dogs, as accessories to his horses. Both
Gainsborough and Romney used dogs in like situations. Nevertheless, it
is true that between Snyder’s and Landseer’s days the “friend of man,”
as an independent subject of study, was neglected by artists.
Another artist of great note was beginning to make a mark which is
likely to grow deeper as the world grows older, for in the man were
many fine powers of art and criticism. He was closely associated with
our subject. This was Leslie, who arrived in England in 1811, and was at
this time, 1815, residing next door to Flaxman, _i.e._, at No. 8,
Buckingham Place, or Street, Fitzroy Square. In 1816 Leslie, eight years
Landseer’s senior, made a bold attempt with a congenial theme from
English poetical history, a class of subject which he affected warmly,
being “The Death of Rutland,” from “The Third Part of Henry VI.,” Act i.
Scene 3, where Clifford murders the youth. Edwin Landseer sat for the
young victim, kneeling, with a rope round his wrists, being then “a
curly-headed youngster, dividing his time between Polito’s wild beasts
at Exeter Change and the Royal Academy Schools.”[21] The picture, after
appearing at the Academy in 1816 (No. 518), was sent to America, and
purchased by the Academy of Philadelphia, where it probably still is. It
contains a very early portrait of our painter. But this was not the
first likeness of Landseer exhibited; for “Master J. Hayter,” afterwards
a portrait-painter of considerable note and some cleverness, although
then but a youngster, painted “Master E. Landseer” as “The Cricketer,”
and sent the work to the Royal Academy in 1815 (No. 450). “Master J.
Hayter” died, an old man, not many years ago.[22]
That an artist so eminent as Landseer should have first presented
himself to the public, or by his father have been so presented, in the
ranks of the honorary exhibitors, is curious. The suffix “H.” to the
name, and his being included with the class in question, leaves no doubt
on the subject. It is understood that pictures by exhibitors of this
class are not for sale, and the privilege of thus showing works is, or
was, considered a compliment to persons of distinction. Thus we find
among the honorary exhibitors of 1815, Sir George Beaumont; the
[Illustration: _The Eagle and Dead Stag._]
Rev. W. Holwell Carr, a benefactor to the National Gallery; J. Britton,
the antiquary; and the Hon. Mary J. Eden. That a picture by a boy of
twelve should be so exhibited is among the curiosities of Academy
displays. Though in itself more meritorious, it is not less remarkable,
than the fact that George Morland, in 1778, sent to the Academy a
picture drawn with a poker, or that similar gatherings formerly
comprised flower-pieces in human hair, and the like “works of art.”
The year 1816 witnessed the second appearance of our painter, and with a
picture the title of which affirms his previous practice. This happened
at “the Great Room in Spring Gardens,” then, and long before, a frequent
place of exhibition, not unlike the present Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly,
that could be hired for all sorts of shows, and afforded many curious
illustrations of the uses to which such a gallery could be put. In the
year in question this “Great Room” was in the occupancy of the Society
of Painters in Oil and Water Colours--that is, the same association
which now flourishes as the Society of Painters in Water Colours, its
original title, which had for a time given way to the first-named
designation, in consequence of a difficulty about dividing profits among
the members, a considerable number of whom seceded, leaving those who
remained unable to cover the walls with pictures. In this strait the
remaining members invited a certain number of oil painters to contribute
to the exhibition, and called the persons who consented to do so
Associate-Exhibitors. The seceders comprised J. J. Chalon, De Wint,
Gilpin, Hills, Reinagle, and Pugin the elder. David Cox had joined the
Society shortly before, and “came to the rescue with a host of
pictures;” but these did not suffice, and the expedient of inviting
Associate-Exhibitors was employed to increase the popularity of the
exhibitions.
It is noteworthy that among these “outsiders” who were taken in as
stop-gaps was William Henry Hunt, one of the most artistic of English
painters; he made his _début_ to the Society, of which he became one of
the most distinguished members, in 1814, with two landscapes in oil.
Hunt, like Landseer, had previously exhibited in the Royal Academy; he
did so in 1807, when Sir Edwin was five years of age. The Society
continued to use, until 1824, its style of the times of difficulty, and
thereafter reverted to its former title and limits. It is worthy of note
that this interval of disturbance had much to do with the bringing out
of painters so diverse in their modes of thought as Hunt and Landseer.
Haydon also found a field for the exhibition of his power in the gallery
of the divided Society. In 1814 the last-named artist sent there “The
Judgment of Solomon,” a picture which is admitted to be the best he
painted, and to it the attention of Landseer’s biographer is directed,
as having probably been purchased, as it was certainly long retained, by
his pupil in memory of Haydon. The work passed from Sir Edwin’s
possession to that of Lord Ashburton.
The connection between the Landseers and Haydon is close. Haydon was, at
least in some degree, Edwin Landseer’s third teacher, if we put Nature
before his father. In his peculiar way, which has to be taken into
account ere we can appreciate the true sense of the following passage,
Haydon describes the first entry of John Landseer’s sons to his
charge:--
“In 1815, Mr. Landseer, the engraver, had brought his boys to me and
said, ‘When do you let your beard grow, and take pupils?’ I said, ‘If my
instructions are useful and valuable, now,’ ‘Will you let my boys come?’
I said, ‘Certainly.’ Charles and Thomas, it was immediately arranged,
should come every Monday, when I was to give them work for the week.
Edwin took my dissections of the lion, and I advised him to dissect
animals--the only mode of acquiring [a knowledge of] their
construction--as I had dissected men, and as I should make his brother
do. This very incident generated in me a desire to form a school; and as
the Landseers made rapid progress, I resolved to communicate my system
to other young men, and endeavour to establish a better and more regular
system of instruction than even the Academy afforded.” It would appear
from this account that Edwin Landseer was not a pupil of Haydon’s in the
sense of that term, which is applicable to his brothers’ studies, This
notion seems to be supported, if not confirmed, by what is recorded
hereafter.[23] It will not be forgotten that long before this date all
the Landseers had made very considerable progress under their father,
and so far as regards Edwin this is affirmed by Haydon.[23]
The pupils who followed the Landseers to Haydon’s studio were, Bewick,
son of an upholsterer of Darlington, who died in 1866, without making
any deep sign in art, and is the subject of Mr. T. Landseer’s biography,
above mentioned; Harvey, the author of so many thousand designs for
woodcuts, familiar to all headers of the “Penny Magazine,” and the by no
means happy illustrator of the “Arabian Nights;” Edwin Chatfield, who
died young; and George Lance, the popular fruit-painter. Of Thomas
Christmas, another of Haydon’s pupils, we speak elsewhere. Before the
Landseers studied under Haydon’s directions, Charles Lock Eastlake, the
late President of the Royal Academy, had received invaluable counsel
from a man whose broken career and hapless fortunes--which were,
doubtless, in no small degree, of his own producing--are among the sad
facts in the history of English painting. Haydon goes on: “All these
young men looked up to me as their instructor and their friend. I took
them under my care, taught them everything I knew, explained the
principles of Raphael’s works in my collection of his prints, and did
the same thing over again which I had done to Eastlake, without one
shilling of payment from them, any more than from him. They improved
rapidly. The gratitude of themselves and of their friends knew no
bounds.” So far, so good; what follows of the writer’s career concerns
us not now. Haydon was painting “Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem,” and
occupied a position which is rather difficult for men of another day
fairly to appreciate. He had finished, with extraordinary _éclat_, “The
Judgment of Solomon,” and, on account of the success this obtained,
fancied himself at the top of the tree. He had certainly begun well for
himself, and his earnest advocacy of the Elgin Marbles was honourable to
him. To this advocacy he attributed an importance that was in excess of
the fact, although it was of great service. He was a valuable champion
in art by means of these marbles, and the studies which he made his
pupils produce from them, to say nothing of the effect of his
introducing to other countries casts of the statues, and promoting the
bringing to London several of the Cartoons of Raphael, which his pupils
Charles and Thomas Landseer drew manfully at the British Institution.
Edwin Landseer made studies from the same works.
The catalogues of pictures exhibited in various galleries show that
Edwin Landseer was at this period domiciled with his father and
brothers, and Mr. Henry Landseer, his uncle, at 33, Foley Street or
Foley Place. A few doors off, at No. 30, lived Thomas Campbell, a
fellow-lecturer with John Landseer at the Royal Institution, where he
delivered “Discourses on English Poetry.” This house was of much
superior character to that which its present appearance indicates; the
whole of the Foley Street region has “gone down” in the world within the
writer’s memory of forty years’ duration.[24]
Haydon’s studio, at 41, Great Marlborough Street, was near for a youth’s
walk; and that artist, with ill-concealed difficulties gathering around
him, struggled yet against them without a sign of failure. Burlington
House, where the Elgin marbles were placed while critical combats were
waged about them ere they found a home in the British Museum, was close
at hand, and the noblest academy for study. Independently of Haydon’s
declaration, there can be no doubt that the Landseers derived immense
benefit from the study of those models, even if they have shown nothing
that can be directly referred to them. It is in the formation of style
that one would expect benefit from these types, rather than in mere
copying their characteristics. We fancy that in Landseer’s dogs, such as
“A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society,” “Suspense,” and wherever
breadth and grandeur of elements are involved, are results of
impressions thus made. We cannot conceive a student who is familiar with
these examples losing the ideas he had obtained from them. Not only did
these works afford lessons which occurred fortunately with studies from
Nature, but the advice of Haydon, that his pupils should dissect, was
the sure guide to success. Having received such instructions from John
Landseer as fixed Nature in his mind as the ever-present and
indisputable director; and from Haydon the injunction to study the
marbles as models of style, together with counsel and aid in dissecting
human and leonine subjects, Edwin Landseer’s powers were in the fairest
way of development. Ability and energy must have done the rest; they
were all-sufficient to bring that reputation which is so widely spread.
To a mere painter of portraits of animals, no such fame, no such
abundance of thanks as are due to Landseer would have accrued. A picture
of Mr. So-and-So’s favourite mastiff, nay, a mere likeness of a
favourite lap-dog, would, except to a few of the enthusiastic, have been
nought to mankind; worse than nought for the reputation of the painter
who failed to impart pathos and character to his productions, and so
make, in one of them, the hat and gloves of a gentleman not unwelcome
to
[Illustration: The Rabbit Warren.]
those who looked for nobler works from such masterly hands.[25] Yet
there were not wanting men who, when the hat and gloves in question
occupied prominent positions in a fine picture by Landseer, demurred
greatly to his expending time on these objects, which had been better
otherwise employed. To a hat and gloves could not, by any process known
to humanity, be imparted either pathos or character. Even Edwin Landseer
failed in this, and there were those who distinguished between the more
heartily wrought and truly pathetic pictures, and such representations
of domesticities. The distinction which many professed to draw between
these pieces of _genre_ painting and “A Dialogue at Waterloo,” which
represents the Duke of Wellington and his daughter-in-law, was that in
the one the painter’s heart was set open by his subject, whereas in the
others there was nothing to open the heart. Although produced with but
few years between them, the style of the former is weak, timid, and
thin; that of the latter, solid, masterly, and broad. It has been said,
doubtless by way of apologizing for the shortcomings of the
domesticities, that the inspiration of the inferior works was a graceful
one. Although later in its origin, we saw more of the studies to which
we just referred in the “Waterloo,” than in the intermediary genre
pictures. Here, then, are examples (1) of mere portraiture, lacking
pathos, and failing even in Landseer’s hands; (2) a pathetic, grand
subject moving him when the Duke of Wellington was in question and
Waterloo to aid, in forming a contrasted subject with that of a lady’s
chamber and other scenes of his work. Experts could hardly believe their
eyes when the unfortunate pictures appeared with Landseer’s name to
them. It was not, then, in mere portraiture that success was to be
looked for when neither pathos nor character are present. Yet these
pictures are recognized as the failures of our artist; and we refer to
them here, because they are no less antipathetic and antithetical to
many others which we have yet to describe, than to the studies we have
just indicated. As to Landseer’s studies, Mr. Ruskin wrote, in
“Pre-Raphaelitism,” p. 30:--“Edwin Landseer is the last painter but one
whom I shall name: I need not point out to any one acquainted with his
earlier works the labour, or watchfulness of nature they involve, nor
need I do more than allude to the peculiar faculties of his mind. It
will at once be granted that the highest merits of his pictures are
throughout to be found in those parts of them which are least like what
had been before accomplished; and that it was not by the study of
Raphael that he attained his eminent success, but by a healthy love of
Scotch terriers.” Undoubtedly Landseer learned next to nothing from
Raphael. In the next chapter we shall show that he enjoyed facilities
for studying the “Cartoons,” _i.e._ those examples of Raphael’s art
which are greatest in style. By means of the Elgin marbles Landseer was
imbued with that care for style which distinguished his best works, from
“Fighting Dogs,” to the “Swannery Invaded,” one of his earlier, and one
of his later pictures.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
A.D. 1818 TO A.D. 1824.
A FULLY-DEVELOPED PAINTER--FIGHTING DOGS--“THE CAT’S PAW”--FIRST VISIT
TO THE HIGHLANDS.
Having now brought our artist to the verge of his career; shown the
course of his studies; and indicated that quality of his genius which
seems to have been most effective in making him what he was, we have
next to set forth, in chronological order, some of his more remarkable
works, and to describe their production as we should relate the history
of special incidents in the life of a man of action. In one sense
pictures are the actions of a great artist: he lives in them, and his
life is of them.
We said that the first exhibited works of Edwin Landseer, “Portrait of a
Mule,” and “Portraits of a Pointer Bitch and Puppy,” were sold with the
collection of Mr. Simpson, the artist’s early friend;[26] the next
painting that comes into notice is the portrait of “Brutus,” the
property of the same gentleman, which was exhibited in 1817. This was,
we believe, the little circular picture originally intended for the top
of a snuff-box, and representing the head of a dog in full face, or
nearly so, which was afterwards very finely engraved in 1818 by Mr. T.
Landseer; the print styled “Old Brutus.” “Brutus” is depicted with a
grizzled muzzle, ears not closely cropped, and having eyes expressing
habits of consideration, as if he had seen the world and profited by
experience; a hawk’s bell hangs beneath his chin. After the wont of dogs
and men, this “wise and venerable” “Brutus” had a son, another “Brutus,”
who became a very much-favoured and frequent model of Landseer’s; the
animal was a gift from Mr. Simpson to the painter.
This son “Brutus,” whom we must, for distinction’s sake, call the second
of the name, whose portrait appears in an early “Sportsman’s Magazine,”
was a rough-hided, very sagacious-looking white dog, with a short tail,
and signs, so far as strangers were concerned, of a shorter temper. Thus
we judge by his portrait, as it was taken, whole canine generations
since “Brutus II.” appeared. The picture was engraved by Mr. T.
Landseer, having its scene in a stable, the floor of which is strewn
with straw; a pipe and a bone are there to tell their tales. The canine
inmate is a wiry-looking creature, tough, and light in limb, yet,
withal, having every muscle instinct with life, and in courage such as
makes him anything but loth to begin a combat. He has seemingly heard,
or smelt, for he cannot yet see, the approach of a stranger of his own
kind, whose muzzle is visible to us by means of the stable door being a
few inches ajar, “with the chain up,” as folks say. This stranger is a
representative of that ill-conditioned race, the bull-dog breed--the
so-called “bull-poop”--much loved by Staffordshire colliers, whose
wives, such is the local legend, are not seldom known to suckle the
“poop” with the baby; although the former is, out of the Black Country,
much abhorred by many men and dogs. Of the latter class, “Brutus II.” is
evidently one, and we may thank the chain of the stable-door for keeping
the animals apart; but for this, there would have been a dire
“scrimmage” between the champions. We believe the same plate which
supplied “The Sportsman’s Magazine” with this capital illustration was
again used for the collected series of “engravings” before referred to
from the works of our artist. The print is one of the most masculine
specimens of its kind, and full of spirit and character. Edwin Landseer
made a great pet of “Brutus II.,” taught him tricks, and very often
painted him.
In the Anderdon Collection of Royal Academy Catalogues, which is now in
the Print Room, British Museum, is a copy of a letter, formerly in the
possession of Dawson Turner, which is characteristic of a young artist,
and, as referring to this important picture of “Brutus,” may well find a
place here. It was, no doubt, directed to Mr. W. W. Simpson:--
“Foley Street, Aug. 12, 1818.
“DEAR SIR,--I must beg to apologize for detaining the pictures so
long, but hope you will now receive them safe, and that you will
like the ‘Brutus,’ as it has generally been admired, and thought
the best thing I have done on so small a scale. I am exceedingly
obliged to you for your kind invitation, but am doubtful whether I
shall be able to avail myself of the pleasure this season.
“I remain,
“Yours truly,
“EDWIN LANDSEER.
“P.S. I shall get on with your other picture as fast as possible. I
think you left the subject to my choice.”
At the foot of the paper is a sketch of a greyhound chasing a hare,
designed with great spirit. To this the following memorandum refers: “I
don’t mean this for the subject.” The signature comprises the usual
flourish which accompanied Landseer’s autograph; the handwriting is very
neat and clear.
The “Portrait of Brutus” showed a white dog, lying at the full length of
his chain, near a red earthenware dish. It is very small; and was sold,
with the pictures of Sir John Swinburne, June, 1861, for seventy
guineas. The bidding began at five guineas, and rose by one guinea at a
time.
It will be observed that we are now writing of Edwin Landseer as an
accomplished artist; yet, strange as it may seem, it is true that only
the year before this picture of “Brutus” was exhibited, he was admitted
a student in the Royal Academy. This is generally considered one of the
earlier steps in an artistic career. So much, however, did our artist
differ from most students, that he was an exhibitor before entering the
Academy, and his progress had been carefully recorded in one of the
periodicals of the day.
There is a pleasant story told of Fuseli, the Keeper, and Landseer’s
entry to the Academy as a student, then a bright lad, with light curling
hair, and a very gentle, graceful manner, and much manliness withal. He
was a diligent student; and Fuseli would look round the room for him,
and, alluding to the picture of “Brutus,” exhibited that year, say,
“Where is my little _dog boy_?”
In the year 1817 was exhibited the “Portrait of an Alpine Mastiff,”
which we have noticed while giving an account of early drawings and
etchings by and after Edwin Landseer. This drawing, and two others, were
exhibited with works by the Society of Painters in Oil and Water
Colours, at the gallery in Spring Gardens. It is doubtless that which
has been engraved by Mr. T. Landseer in 1818.
The year 1818 is noteworthy as constituting an important epoch in the
life of our artist. He then produced a picture from which the present
height of his reputation might have been predicted. This appeared at the
before-mentioned exhibition of the Society of Painters in Oil and Water
Colours, Spring Gardens, entitled “Fighting Dogs getting Wind” (No.
140); it excited an extraordinary amount of attention. The work was
purchased by Sir George Beaumont, and this fact was accepted as giving a
stamp of the higher order of distinction to the artist, who immediately
rose in fame, and became “the fashion,” in a way in which those persons
will easily realize who have read Haydon’s account of his own and
Wilkie’s positions in the world under similar circumstances.
Here is a criticism on “Fighting Dogs getting Wind,” from “The
Examiner,” p. 269, 1818, in a review of the exhibition of the Society of
Painters in Oil and Water Colours. After refering
[Illustration: _Return from Deer Stalking._]
to the merits of certain landscapes which commanded the critic’s
admiration, we are told, “Their pictures alone would elevate the
character of this Exhibition; but when we add the ‘_Fighting Dogs
getting Wind_,’ by our English SCHNEIDERS, young Mr. E. LANDSEER, and
the masterly Drawings and Paintings by Mr. HAYDON, we give overflowing
evidence of the justness of our preference of this Exhibition. It
behoves the Keeper of the room to be careful how he admits any animals
of the same species before the ‘_Fighting Dogs_,’ when we recollect the
exciting effect which a ‘_Mastiff_’ by this young Animal Painter had
last year upon a canine judge admitted to the room. We hope that E.
LANDSEER will not deviate from his large touch into a littleness of
style. His may be called the great style of Animal Painting, as far as
it relates to the execution and colour; 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.” The writer was evidently
deeply moved. It is impossible to refrain from smiling at the thought
that Leigh Hunt’s, or his brother’s, influence in respect to “The
Examiner” was thus represented with regard to pictures by their friend
Haydon and Edwin Landseer. The painting is still at Coleorton; it was
No. 422, in the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition of 1874. It has not been
engraved.
Of one of Landseer’s contributions to the Royal Academy in 1818 Wilkie
thus wrote to Haydon: “Geddes has a good head.[27] Etty has a clever
piece, and young Landseer’s jackasses are also good.”[28] The picture
thus referred to as by Landseer is styled “Portrait of a Donkey.”
Wilkie’s memory tricked him about it, but his testimony of admiration is
valuable. In these days the British Institution received superior
attention from Landseer: and the Academy gatherings--where, however, his
_début_ was made--rarely contained his more important productions.
Lady Charles Wellesley has a picture of this year, a thoroughly
characteristic example of Landseer’s then current mode, which was
mounted for the Hon. H. Pierrepoint, but not sent home, and when
inquired for could not be found. It is called “White Horse in a Stable.”
In 1842, many years after its disappearance, the work was discovered in
a hayloft, where it had been hidden by a dishonest servant, and was sent
by Sir Edwin with a letter to Mr. Pierrepoint, stating that the white
horse “was the first of that complexion I ever painted,” and that he had
not retouched it, thinking “it better when my early style unmingled with
that of my old age.” In answer to a question as to price, he mentioned
that the sum he was accustomed to receive at the time of painting this
picture was Ten Guineas: see the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition
Catalogue, 1874, p. 24.
In 1818 a satirical print was published in Elmes’s “Annals of the Fine
Arts,” representing Haydon and his pupils drawing from Raphael’s
Cartoon of “Elymas struck blind,”[29] which, as Haydon boasted, had by
his means been brought to London and placed for the use of artists in
the British Institution. This print is a rough etching, and entitled “A
Master in the Grand Style & his Pupils;” it represents the interior of
the gallery with three enormous canvases placed before the Cartoon,
besides a smaller one and a portfolio, at which last a boy is drawing
one of the heads on our right of Raphael’s work. Five copyists are busy,
two of whom are identified by their portraits and inscriptions on their
canvases, as, 1, Bewick, a “romantic” looking youth, who assumes “the
grand style” of drawing, pressing his lips together demonstratively
after the fashion of poor Haydon himself, while he steps backwards on
the rickety platform and draws at arm’s length, sustaining his right
elbow with his left hand; his inner mind is evidently divided between
his studies and concern for his personal appearance, which is intended
to be more than commonly beautiful by means of long curled locks tucked
behind his ears, and a falling shirt-collar; his boots are of the
smallest. The next artist, 2, is Thomas Christmas, one of Haydon’s
pupils, wearing very big boots, his hair and collar being similar to
those of his neighbour. The figures working at the smaller canvases on
our left do not concern us here; but the portrait of a lad, who, perched
on a ladder, measures with a pair of compasses the features of one of
the faces in Raphael’s work is important, as it probably represents
Edwin (see below) or Charles Landseer, the younger two of Haydon’s
pupils, in the figure of a modest-looking, neatly-dressed boy. In the
air is Haydon, wearing his broad-brimmed hat and spectacles, busily
flying about as a bird and blowing his own trumpet as “Director of the
Public Taste.”[30]
The joke is heightened by the publication line of the print stating that
it was “Published for the Annals of the Fine Arts, No. 8, by Sherwood,
Neely & Jones, Paternoster Row, April 1, 1818.” In this Journal it
appeared with a long letter animadverting on Haydon and his pupils. If
anybodies’ merits were certain to be recorded in Elmes’s “Annals,” they
were those of Haydon and his pupils; but the editor, in order, as he
stated, to show his impartiality, did not hesitate to publish the satire
on his friends; he was doubtless assured that there was nothing Haydon
enjoyed so much as notoriety. “Mr. E. Landseer” is named with his
brother in the “Annals,” for 1818, p. 360, as among those who drew in
chalk from the Cartoon of “The Beautiful Gate.” According to the
“Annals,” ii. 433, the brothers, Thomas and Charles, drew the lictors
and the figure of Elymas in the “Elymas struck blind” in 1817.[31]
Some of these drawings were exhibited by Haydon, 1819, in Pall Mall.
“Messrs. Thomas Christmas and the two Landseers have taken their
canvases to the Academy (British Institution), to make drawings from the
Ananias,” &c., so says the “Annals,” No. 6, p. 436; and there seems to
have been a tolerably unwise squabble about the pupils of Haydon and
their drawings from this cartoon. (See pp. 442-3 of the same volume.)
“The Cat disturbed” was a picture of the year 1819, contributed to the
British Institution, and afterwards engraved with the title of “The
Intruder.” It, we believe, reappeared at the Gallery of the Society of
British Artists in 1826, with the title of “The intrusive Visitor,” and
represents a cat hunted to a high place in a stable by a dog, into whose
quarters she had ventured. This was probably the work belonging to Sir
C. Coote, of which Dr. Waagen wrote, in complete harmony with the
opinion intimated in these pages, that Landseer at an early stage
painted with greater solidity than in later days. It is now in the
possession of Sir Philip de Malpas Egerton. Dr. Waagen says, “This
picture exhibits a power of colouring”--by this he doubtless meant depth
of tone, for colouring is simply out of the question in Landseers’s
art--“and a solidity of execution recalling such masters as Snyders and
Fyt.” Here we may as well say that no one has a true and complete, or
even a satisfactory, notion of the spirit and vigour of our painter’s
powers at this time unless he has studied these triumphs. They possess
qualities not discoverable in his later works, but, of course, lack
extraordinary merits which predominated when he grew older.
The preference often exhibited by Landseer for the British Institution
appeared strongly in 1820, when a picture, which had been much talked
about in professional circles, was shown at the gallery in Pall Mall,
and attracted more admiration than the foregoing works. This was the
famous “Alpine Mastiffs re-animating a distressed Traveller,” afterwards
engraved by John Landseer, and due to studies of the magnificent dog of
St. Bernard, to which we have referred as the property of “a gentleman
of Liverpool,” according to the catalogue of the Spring Gardens gallery
of 1817. This picture now belongs to Mr. S. Addington. (See below on the
Exhibition in 1835 of “A Sleeping Bloodhound,” now at South
Kensington.)
It must not be supposed that Landseer, so young as he was, produced
small pictures only; on the contrary, the British Institution contained
two paintings, one of which measured six feet by seven feet six inches;
while its companion, “A Lion disturbed at his Repast,” was six feet by
eight feet, “landscape way,” as artists say; _i.e._ the longer dimension
was horizontal. At the same gathering appeared “A Lion enjoying his
Repast.” We have observed Landseer with his brothers copying parts of
the Cartoons of the same sizes as the originals. At this
period--1821--he exhibited at the British Institution “The Seizure of a
Boar,” with life-sized figures, which belongs to the Marquis of
Landsdowne; it is full of action and worthy of the artist’s rising fame.
We believe it has not been engraved. Haydon’s advice had been
adopted--large works were undertaken, and a lion was dissected. An
opportunity for the latter study occurred through the death of a lion in
the Exeter Change Menagerie; this chance was seized, and the results
were several lion pictures, as the above, and “A prowling Lion,” which
was at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1822.
After these, lion subjects were not produced for a considerable time;
opportunities for anatomizing such costly and rare animals as lions do
not often occur; yet, as we may presently observe, our artist was at a
later day fortunate in obtaining at least one other chance of this kind.
The history of this matter, and an anecdote respecting it, are narrated
further on.
In 1821 the progress of our subject was continued with rapidity and
honour. The pictures of that year were, at the Royal Academy,
“Ratcatchers,” which is now at Lambton Castle, the property of the Earl
of Durham, and may be taken to illustrate Landseer’s admirable inventive
powers at this period, although it is by no means the most important of
his productions of the kind and date. Three dogs are in an old barn, and
as if they had gone wild with passion and anxiety, because a fourth,
whose extreme latter end is visible, is “scurrying” rats in depths below
the broken floor of the
[Illustration: _The Highland Mother._]
place. His tail gives expressive signals of excitement and rage, and,
beyond all misunderstanding, indicates his furious desire to get at his
foes. It is but slight comfort to the eager creatures that several of
their enemies are already stretched on the floor, or that a living rat,
half conscious of impending doom, springs and dances at the wires of a
trap near his dead brethren--he is at once confined and fortified in
bars of iron. A maltster’s shovel, birch broom, old cart-harness, traces
of cart-gear, a bottle, and stray wisps of straw, litter the ground and
aid the composition. This composition, as regards the dogs, is worthy of
admiration. The three entirely visible dogs, may be described as
follows: A big white terrier, in whom one fancies the “Brutus” of former
pictures, plunges and “scurries” round the hole where the sunken comrade
is at work; he grovels with his nose near the floor, and thrusts his
head and chest forward in fierce action; his jaws are set, and his
breath goes quickly in and out of his nostrils; his ears are thrown to
the front as if to listen for squeaks in the region of the rafters; his
eyes protrude and glitter with ravenous desire; his fore feet are spread
widely apart, and his hind legs thrust far behind. The _chiaro scuro_ is
disposed so that the white body of this dog is the chief object; the
light falls powerfully on him, so that his colour aids the effect in the
manner of the great masters of _chiaro scuro_--which is much more than
mere “light and shade” in the common sense of that term. Behind,--with a
white mark, like a splash of chalk on the back of his head and between
his ears, his figure coming above that of the last-named animal,--squats
on his haunches a black dog of less demonstrative but equally excitable
temperament; his back is arched in a bow, he quivers, and bends his head
over the searching terrier with an eager gaze that is very finely
expressed. He seems to whimper now and then; but “Brutus,” if it be he,
yelps, snaps, barks, and almost howls in his ardour. One sees that if
the hole were big enough to admit the bigger dog he would swiftly pull
out the pioneer and go in himself, confident in his own resources, in
an emergency like this; but with all this valour he has discretion
enough to know that the hole would never admit a bulky carcass like his
own, and that the sole chance for him consists in the possibility that a
rat may appear at some apparently unguarded crevice, or, delirious with
fear, rush between the legs of the half-buried hunter. Farthest off is a
smaller and younger terrier, who has the air of an amateur or
representative of the “lay-element” of rat-catching.[32] This dog sits
in a formal, affected manner, his ears are uncropped and hang like
lappels[33] quaintly above his head, with no unapt likeness to the
decorations on a cap of a fool of the Middle Ages. This is a younger
dog, and as eager as his fellows, although less impressionable. The joys
of rat combating are as yet untasted by him, or he may be the
_dilettante_ he seems. This picture was, like many more by Landseer,
engraved by his brother Thomas; it was published in 1823.
In the same year 1821, which produced the “Ratcatchers” for the Royal
Academy, the British Institution was enriched with a picture that was
engraved for “The Sporting Magazine,” or “Annals of Sporting,” and
styled “Pointers To-ho!” The background shows a long level landscape,
which is evidently a piece of nature; two pointers stand in the front,
at the “foot” of the picture; behind them is a man with a gun: it is a
thoroughly “sporting picture,” and as true to life as it is possible to
be. A pen and ink sketch for “To-ho!” was sold at the artist’s sale, May
11, 1874, for twenty guineas. Of Landseer’s paintings of this year at
the British Institution, Wilkie wrote to Sir George Beaumont, who was
interested as the purchaser of a former picture: “Ward, Etty, Stark,
Crome, and Landseer are successful, but in no great work.”
The year 1822 was to be marked with a white stone in the annals of a
young artist like Edwin Landseer, because he then received the premium
of one hundred and fifty pounds from the Directors of the British
Institution for “The Larder invaded,” which was contributed to this
exhibition of that date. In the same year Mr. George Jones, R.A., late
Keeper of the Royal Academy, obtained two hundred pounds in
acknowledgment of the merit of his “Battle of Waterloo.” In 1821, John
Martin received two hundred pounds on account of his “Belshazzar’s
Feast.” As to Martin, there is a story, originally told by himself, to
the effect that he contributed a picture to the Royal Academy in 1812,
and before sending it, and while washing his brushes in an adjoining
room, had the pleasure of hearing the framemaker’s men dispute as to
which was the top and which the bottom of the painting. This work is one
of Martin’s finer productions, the poetical “Sadak in search of the
Waters of Oblivion.”
In 1822, our painter likewise contributed “The watchful Sentinel” to the
British Institution. This picture is in the possession of Mr. Chapman,
of Manchester, and represents a large black dog watching packages by a
road side; a post-chaise is in the distance.
There is an interesting passage in a letter by Wilkie to Sir George
Beaumont, dated from No. 24, Lower Phillimore Place, 14th February,
1823; it throws a double light on the writer and our artist. The passage
refers to what Sir David called a “niggling touch” in painting, as “very
common of late in our pictures,” a defect, if such it was, that was due,
no doubt, to over anxiety on the part of the artists, and to the desire
“for fulness of subject,” whatever that may be. The writer stated: “I
have been warning our friend Collins against this, and was also urging
young Landseer to beware of it.” The fact was, Wilkie’s health, then
breaking up, precluded that extreme care which distinguished his early
and good pictures; moreover, his reputation was made, and he wanted to
make money; this could not be done by “niggling,” so he aimed at
breadth, as he called it, went abroad for health, came back over head
and ears in asphaltum, and never painted a sound picture afterwards.
Unfortunately, his better pictures, such as “The Blind Fiddler,” and
“The Village Festival,” now in the National Gallery, have been repaired
on account of excessive cracking.
Edwin Landseer’s early practice is thus curiously illustrated by
Wilkie’s advice. At a later time, no one could caution the former
against “niggling,” or enjoin cultivation of “breadth.” Nor was this
required since the Highland subjects were taken up after the northern
journey with Leslie in 1824; to the first of these we shall presently
refer, under the title of “Highlanders returning from Deer-Stalking,”
exhibited in 1827, the first contribution of the artist as an Associate
of the Royal Academy.
“Neptune,” a picture of 1824, represents the head and shoulders of a
huge Newfoundland dog, in full front view, with his mouth open and
tongue shown; the head is black, with a white stripe dividing it, and
having an oval spot of black on the white of the forehead; it is
superbly designed, and treated in honour of the noble animal. It was
painted for Mr. Ellis Gosling, and has been admirably engraved by the
artist’s brother.
The best known of Edwin Landseer’s early pictures is “The Cat’s Paw,”
which was exhibited at the British Institution in 1824, and now hangs in
the dining-room at Cassiobury, the seat of the Earl of Essex. This work,
which is painted on a panel, was bought of the artist for one hundred
pounds, and sold a few days afterwards to the late Earl of Essex, a
great patron of the arts, for one hundred and twenty pounds, and would
probably be worth, if now sold, about three thousand pounds.
This was Sir Edwin’s estimate, made some years since, when, soon after
the fever caused by Mr. Bicknell’s remarkably well-managed sale of
pictures, the present Earl of Essex met the painter, and asked what he
thought “The Cat’s Paw” would produce if it were sold. “About three
thousand pounds,” was the answer. At the sale, which occurred in 1863,
appeared illustrations of the increase in the value of Landseer’s
pictures; thus “The Prize Calf,” which is by no means one of his best
works, and for which he four years earlier received four hundred and
twenty pounds, was resold for one thousand eight hundred and ninety
pounds; “The Twa Dogs,” purchased for three hundred pounds, was sold for
two thousand four hundred and fifteen pounds; “The Highland Shepherd,”
exhibited in 1850, and bought for three hundred and fifty pounds,
brought back again two thousand three hundred and forty-one pounds, ten
shillings. As “The Cat’s Paw” now appears, it is hot and dark in tone,
if compared with some silvery and more solid productions. It scarcely
needs a description, yet we may point out how admirably the incident is
told. The scene 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 flat iron,
half-a-dozen ripe sound chestnuts. To the aromatic, appetizing odour 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 favourite 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 fore-paw--the
very mouse-slayer itself--to the burning stove and its spoils. What
cared he for the bowed backs or the spiteful mewlings of her miserable
offspring, little cats as they were? He made their mother a true “Cat’s
Paw.”
This picture was engraved by C. G. Lewis. Shortly after its exhibition
Sir Walter Scott came to London, and took the young painter to
Abbotsford on his return, “where,” said
[Illustration: _Mare and Foal._]
Leslie, recording the circumstance, “he will make himself very popular,
both with master and mistress of the house, by sketching their doggies
for them.” It was probably due to the vein of thought and fancy most
cultivated by Scott, and sure to affect his young visitor, that Landseer
after this painted Scotch subjects and romantic themes, such as he had
not previously indulged in. “Chevy Chase” was commenced shortly
afterwards, and exhibited with marked effect on young Landseer’s
fortunes. Leslie had been with Sir Walter, taking his portrait, and
found the novelist to “dislike sitting very much,” and to be fonder of
dashing out of doors with the “doggies,” rabbit-killing, and landscape
hunting. The incident referred to by the picture at the British
Institution in 1858 (see the Catalogue) probably occurred at this time.
Landseer’s first visit to the Highlands was made in 1824. Leslie and he
went in the London and Leith steamer. They visited Glasgow, and Loch
Lomond and Loch Katrine, and crossed the mountains on foot to Loch Earn,
in order to be present at an annual meeting of Highlanders, which
occurred under the patronage of Lord Gwydyr, and included performances
on bagpipes, dancing, broadsword exercise, and the like pastimes; the
painters traversed Loch Earn in a large row-boat, with Highland rowers,
who told them, says Leslie, in his “Autobiography,” stories of the
fairies who haunted the shores. To this visit to Abbotsford was due the
well-known “Scene at Abbotsford,” by Landseer, and from it he derived
inspiration for Highland pictures. After this period he rarely failed to
visit the north annually, and the catalogue of his works bears evidence
of his studies there.
“Taking a Buck,” and “The Widow,” were Landseer’s contributions to the
Royal Academy in 1825, with a portrait. “The Poacher” appeared in the
same year at the British Institution. “The Hunting of Chevy Chase,” an
important work, which has been repeatedly exhibited, was shown in the
following season at the Academy. The affectionate deference paid by
Edwin Landseer to his father at this time has been illustrated by the
account of the difficulty he experienced in leaving the paternal roof.
No one who knew the painter believes that he was likely to be weakly
subservient to his father or any one else; or that in 1824, when in his
twenty-second year, and already the possessor of a very considerable
reputation, he was in any respect a timid recluse. Nevertheless, it is
recorded that when one interested in bringing his pictures into note,
called on the painter in the dingy studio he occupied in the Fitzroy
Square region--it was, we believe, Upper Conway Street, now Southampton
Street, Fitzroy Square, near where Mulready lodged in Cleveland
Street--the visitor asked, “Why are you in this place, without a table,
carpet, or proper chairs? why not have a place where you can keep a dog
or two, and have a garden, and so on?” The answer was that the painter
lived with his father, and occupied the place only to paint in. The
offer of a hundred pounds for “The Cat’s Paw,” then just finished, a
price satisfactory to the artist, did not induce him to conclude the
bargain and set himself free from the paternal control. John Landseer
managed his son’s affairs, settled the prices of his pictures, received
the money, and treated Edwin in his twenty-second year as he had done
when he was twelve years old. John Landseer did what Mr. Jacob Bell,
many years afterwards, did for his friend, _i.e._ managed his affairs
with zeal and discretion, and, perhaps, the father kept a tighter hold
on the painter than the friend was able to maintain. This affectionate
arrangement was proof against the second offer of one hundred pounds in
a crisp bank-note for “The Cat’s Paw,” which thus came into the
possession of the Earl of Essex, and not into that of the young artist’s
friend. The same affection for his parent appeared in “Sketch of my
Father,” 1848, the pathos of which was as simple as it was kindly. Of
the same vein of feeling we find it recorded that in 1817 or 1818, the
Landseers, in order to make a present to Haydon, when they were about to
quit his tutelage, prepared a copy of one of the Cartoons which were at
the British Institution; this copy--we are not certain if it was more
than an important group--was a gift to Haydon. Sir Edwin bought and
carefully preserved Haydon’s “Judgment of Solomon,” not only on account
of the fineness of the picture, but, it is said, in kindly remembrance
of his old adviser.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
A.D. 1825 TO A.D. 1834.
AT ST. JOHN’S WOOD--MADE ROYAL ACADEMICIAN--FACILITY AT WORK--TECHNICAL
DEXTERITY--JACK IN OFFICE.
“The Cat’s Paw” was sold, and soon after a renewed offer of pecuniary
aid that he might establish himself, was accepted by the painter, and he
found, near Regent’s Park, a small house with a garden; here a large
barn was converted to a studio, and he set up his staff
independently--not, however, without qualms of heart at thus quitting
the “old house at home.” The fact is, he was not a man of business, nor
a man of the world; he had remained so long in tutelage, and owed so
much to his father, that it needed more than ordinary impulses ere he
was induced to plunge into the world as the chief of a household. This
diffidence was so strongly marked that, on learning that a premium of
one hundred pounds was demanded for the house, Landseer was about to
break off the negotiation in despair. But his adviser, who had
endeavoured to buy “A Cat’s Paw,” came to his aid. “Well,” said he, on
learning the difficulty which seemed insurmountable, “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.” This was agreed to, the
lease was made out, and the money paid. Edwin Landseer returned the
money by instalments of twenty pounds each, and this transaction
concluded the history of the obtaining the house, which was enlarged as
his means permitted and his convenience demanded. This is the house in
which he lived for nearly fifty years, and in which he died. Here his
sister, Mrs. Mackenzie, to whom the reader is much indebted, long acted
as his housekeeper. Here the greater part of his life’s work was done,
and in it, as we believe, John Landseer died. It was for many years the
centre of the kindly painter’s _entourage_, where his friends were
summoned to meet by hasty messages bidding them to pleasant parties, and
it is the house which of all others in London belonging to artists has
received the greatest number of distinguished visitors, always excepting
that of Sir Joshua Reynolds in Leicester Square. Not long before, the
district was open and the locality pertained to Red Hand Farm.[34] In
those days deer were in Hyde Park, where one would now as soon expect to
see a phœnix, or be gored by the stag that was painted in our artist’s
next picture, as to encounter even a doe.
The “Portrait of Lord Cosmo Russell,” 1825, represents a boy in a
Highland dress, holding a whip and galloping on a pony over a moor, with
a dog running by his side. “Taking a Buck” shows three deer-hounds
chasing a buck; one of the dogs has leaped at and seized its prey by the
ear, and thus checked the progress of the latter, giving a keeper an
opportunity for throwing a noose over his antlers, so that he may be
pinioned and secured.
In 1826 appeared “The Dog and the Shadow” now at South Kensington. This
is an illustration of the old fable; a dog with a piece of flesh in his
mouth is crossing a brook by means of a fallen tree, and stops to gaze
at the reflected image of himself and his prize. A worsted cap and a
pair of shoes on the bank indicate that a butcher’s boy, who loitered to
fish or bathe, has been plundered of part of his charge. Such is the
official description. We believe it was about this time that Sydney
Smith’s humorous reply was given to an invitation that he should sit to
Edwin Landseer. He said, with that dashing readiness which characterized
the man of jokes, “Is thy servant a dog that he should do this great
thing?” This was a not very reverent paraphrase of the speech of Hazael,
the messenger of Ben-hadad, king of Syria, to Elisha. There have been
more than one claimant for the honour of saying this good thing; like
many others of its kind, it was probably never “said” at all, but
deliberately invented, with toil of brain and mental throes. There is
another story of Sydney Smith, which is very good, and not less
characteristic of the wit. Landseer said to the clerical dignitary,
“With your love of humour, it must be an act of great self-denial to
abstain from going to the theatres.” “The managers,” he replied, “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.”
In 1826, when Landseer was twenty-four years of age, several of his
works were etched by his pupil, Georgina, Duchess of Bedford.
The exhibition of the picture of “Chevy Chase” can hardly be said to
have led to Landseer’s election as an Associate of the Academy. This
honour was long anticipated, and the election occurred, as a matter of
course, immediately on his attaining the age of twenty-four years, that
being the limit prescribed by the laws of the artistic body. Sir Thomas
Lawrence and Mr. Millais were among the few to whom similarly early
elections have been vouchsafed. “Chevy Chase” is at Woburn Abbey, and
the property of the Duke of Bedford, whose ancestor was the original
purchaser. In this picture we see the fruits of Landseer’s visit to Sir
W. Scott and to the Highlands, a district of which he may be said to
have been the artistic prophet, and from which he derived more subjects
than any other; its men, animals, and landscapes he illustrated from the
picture next before us up to the “Flood in the Highlands” of 1860.
[Illustration: _Shepherd’s Dog and Pups._]
“The Chief’s return from Deer-stalking” (1827) is not only the first
important Highland picture by our painter, but the first of his
contributions to the Royal Academy as an Associate. It is 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 magnificently 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. With this picture is connected a more noteworthy point than
those we have observed in the history of our subject. With it his style
of execution was changed from the sound and deliberate firmness of
youthful practice to the broader, freer, and more effective mode which
next characterized his later work. The careful studies of earlier life
enabled him to paint broadly, and with precision, and gave power to
indicate at once that which, ere this time, was the result of ardent and
long-sustained consideration. Amassed knowledge made the artist a
master. It must not be concealed, however, that with this attainment of
“mastery” no small sacrifice was made in solidity and elaboration of
modelling. Facility that was marvellous, and dexterity which had the
charm of magic, astounding to the observer, are somewhat dearly, though
in a pecuniary sense profitably, purchased by the sacrifice of qualities
which are higher and rarer than facility and dexterity.
With “The Chief’s return” appeared “The Monkey who had seen the World,”
which was engraved by Gibbon as “The travelled Monkey,” and is a
well-known design, showing the reunion of Pug and his untravelled
friends. The latter are in their natural costume of hair, the former is
dressed as a “beau,” with his head in powder and covered by a cocked hat
of the most audacious _mode_; a cravat embraces his neck, and its
widely-spreading ends cover his chest; a long-skirted, deep-pocketed,
laced, stiff-collared coat holds his lean body, a large lapelled vest
hangs nearly to his knees; breeches, stockings, and buckled shoes
enclose his lower extremities; his tail is nowhere, but he carries,
instead of it, a splendid cane, and bears round his neck a most
superfluous eye-glass. His unsophisticated comrades contemplate this
figure with expressions which may be readily imagined. The pendant
eye-glass bothers them more than all the rest of his bedizenments. A few
of the less bold monkeys squat and gibber behind the principal group.
This picture belongs to the Baring Collection.
The British Institution comprised in this year (1827) with “Chevy
Chase,” the well-known picture of a dog--Sir Walter Scott’s
“Maida”--reclining by a piece of armour; a work which is entitled “Scene
at Abbotsford,” and was, no doubt, designed during the visit of which we
have spoken before. It is well known by Westwood’s capital engraving for
the “Keepsake.” The year 1828 was for our subject one of comparative
rest, so far as exhibitions were concerned; 1829 produced “The Illicit
Whisky-Still in the Highlands,” an admirable work, familiar to most
readers, and “A Fireside Party,” which is now at South Kensington, and
shows how in a rude bothy several serious-looking terriers are lying and
sitting in various attitudes of thoughtfulness and ease before the fire.
These dogs belong to Malcolm Clarke, Esq., of Inverary, and are said to
have been the original “Peppers” and “Mustards” described by Sir Walter
Scott in “The Antiquary;” a descendant appeared in the picture of 1833,
which represented Sir Walter himself and companions.
The year 1830 witnessed the election of our artist to the full honours
of the Royal Academy. Having attained this point in his life, it will
not be needful to follow his yearly steps; suffice it that it is our
purpose to deal chiefly with Landseer’s more important productions, and
to note his accessions to honours.
In “High Life” and “Low Life,” which are in the Vernon Gift, and now in
the National Gallery, we have contrasted conditions. The gentle,
gentlemanly stag-hound, apparently the dog of the “Scene at Abbotsford,”
appears in the former of these paintings, which were first exhibited at
the British Institution in 1831, and are noteworthy on account of their
size, being not more than eighteen inches by thirteen inches and a half.
They are among the smallest of celebrated pictures, and, comparatively,
mere sketches. The second subject is a broad and brawny bull-dog, the
_aide_ of a butcher, by whose block, and guarding whose hat, pipe,
boots, and pot, he sits. Our dog here is in a state of satisfaction with
the recent past and the soon to come: he has had a capital meat
breakfast--note the beef bone in front of the step; the sun is bright
and warm, so that it makes him lazily blink one eye, while the other,
being shaded, is watching. Fat, he lounges against the jamb of the door;
the savour, nay the very flavour of the bone and its adjuncts, lingers
about his muzzle, which he licks gently and unctuously. His prospects
are almost as agreeable as his experiences; for is he not about to have
a ride in the cart--note the whip hanging on the door-latch, and the
boots--to market, where there will be company and canine sports. Mr.
Ruskin has studied “Low Life” from his proper point of view, which is,
of course, not that to be adopted in this book. See “Modern Painters,”
v. 271. “Cunning signifies especially a habit or gift of over-reaching,
accompanied with enjoyment and a sense of superiority. Its essential
connections with vulgarity may be at once exemplified by the expression
of the butcher’s dog in Landseer’s ‘Low Life.’ Cruikshank’s ‘Noah
Claypole,’ in the illustrations to ‘Oliver Twist,’ in the interview with
the Jew, is, however, still more characteristic. It is the intensest
rendering of vulgarity absolute and utter with which I am acquainted.”
“Poachers Deer-Stalking,” another famous picture, appeared in this year
(1831), with “Too Hot!” “A Lassie herding Sheep,” sent to the British
Institution in 1832, was at the Art Treasures Exhibition in 1857, and
at that time the property of William Wells, Esq. It needs no description
here. In 1832 was exhibited a picture, which most fortunately
illustrates the perfect command of the brush and the extraordinary
facility which long-continued and severe studies gave to our painter.
This was “Spaniels of King Charles’s Breed,” which is now in the Vernon
Gift, in the National Gallery. It is sometimes styled “The Cavalier’s
Pets,” and represents two dogs lying on a table, by the side of a grey
hat with a large drooping ostrich feather stuck in its band. The dogs
were pets of Mr. Vernon’s, and the sketch was made in his house as a
commission to Landseer, but, after a short sitting, not continued for
some time. One day Mr. Vernon met the artist in the street, and reminded
him of the commission. Two days later the work as it now appears was
delivered at Mr. Vernon’s house, although it was not begun when the
meeting happened. It is due to not more than two days’ labour, and a
triumph of dexterity in brush working, showing as much facility as the
ancient fresco painters exhibited when they dealt with and completed an
important head of a man in one day. The sweeping touches by which the
feather in the felt hat is expressed have been placed with exquisite
precision, and deserve the most careful consideration of all students
and amateurs in dexterous art. This kind of execution, of which
Landseer’s pictures exhibit innumerable illustrations, is magical; it is
really more like penmanship, in which the artist astounds us by
elaborate and super-skilful flourishes and the flow of lines in lines,
than downright painting of the stricter order, which is not contented
with exquisite craftsmanship alone. In this category of triumphs must be
classed the countless imitations of hair and feathers which consummate
“dragging” of the brush and incomparable skill enabled Landseer to
produce rapidly and frequently. It is said, although our memories cannot
verify the statement, that Landseer sent a picture of “Rabbits” to the
British Gallery, _i.e._ the British Institution, under which he wrote,
“Painted in three-quarters of an hour.”[35] Both the dogs in Mr.
Vernon’s picture came to violent ends, so says our authority for this
matter.[36] The white Blenheim spaniel fell from a table and was killed;
the true “King Charles” fell through the railings of a staircase in his
master’s house, and was picked up dead at the bottom. The history of
another ill-fated dog, a subject of Landseer’s art, will be found in our
account of “The sleeping Bloodhound,” which was exhibited at the British
Institution in 1835, and is now in the National Gallery. This anecdote
likewise illustrates Landseer’s amazing facility. Hardly less remarkable
is the fact that the Hon. W. Russell’s picture “Odin,” which was
exhibited in 1836, was painted within twelve hours, or at “one
sitting.”[37]
As to Landseer’s facility of execution, Mr. Redgrave truly wrote
thus:--“That happy facility which has already been alluded to is fairly
to be illustrated in the works of Sir Edwin Landseer. Examine carefully
‘A Fireside Party,’ No. 90 (Sheepshanks Gift); here the hairy texture of
the veritable race of ‘Pepper’ and ‘Mustard’ is given, as it were, hair
for hair, yet it was achieved at once by a dexterous use of the
painter’s brush. Or turn from this work to ‘The tethered Rams’ (No. 95,
Sheepshanks Gift), where the fullest truth of a woolly texture is
obtained by simply, with a full brush, applying the more solid pigment
into that which has already been laid on as a ground, with a large
admixture of the painter’s vehicle; days might be spent endeavouring to
arrive at a result which the painter has achieved at once. The early
works of this painter are a complete study for light-handed and
beautiful execution; they look intuitively perfect, yet many instances
are known of his extreme rapidity of execution.” It should be noted that
Mr. Redgrave must refer to pictures which might be truly, if relatively,
styled “early works” of Landseer. The works to which we have called
attention as produced before 1826 are examples of happily directed
labour, not drudgery, and anything rather than displays of tact in
painting and dexterity in handling. Note the passage we have quoted from
Wilkie’s letter to Sir George Beaumont. It is needful to interpose this
statement, because too many persons admire such facility as an end,
whereas it is but a felicitous means in art. The extraordinary felicity
and skill of our painter followed more than twenty years hard study.
Foolish ideas often rise in the minds of those who read stories such as
we have just given, which stories are truer than the tale of the
exasperated painter--was it Rubens or Zeuxis?--who dashed the foam in a
pictured horse’s mouth by angrily casting his brush at the painting. Mr.
Redgrave continues:--
“In the collection of the late Mr. Wells, of Redleaf, among many
other works by this artist (Landseer) are two which are peculiarly
illustrative of this quality; one is a spaniel rushing out of a
thicket with a wounded rabbit. The rabbit and dog are of the size
of life, they have the fullest appearance of completeness, yet the
picture was painted in two hours and a half. The other picture is
of a fallow deer, and of the size of life, painted down to the
knees. Mr. Wells used to relate that on leaving the house to go to
Penshurst Church, the panel for this picture was being placed on
the easel by his butler, and, on his return in about three hours,
the painting was complete; so complete, indeed, that it is more
than doubtful if equal truth of imitation could have resulted from
a more ---- execution.”
This picture was in the Royal Academy, 1874, No. 350. Finally, as to
this astonishing facility in painting, let us write that in the National
Portrait Exhibition of 1868, was a portrait of the second Lord Ashburton
(No. 467), a three quarters view, painted on a canvas thirty-six inches
high, by twenty-eight inches wide, and said to have been executed, like
“Odin,” in one sitting. Of course it is not highly-finished. As a
vigorous sketch, the thinking and power of execution involved in such
rapid production are marvellous. A picture, “Spaniel and Rabbit,” No.
405, at the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition, was inscribed by the
artist “painted in two hours and a half.”
But by far the most amazing instance of the technical powers of our
subject is that which is in itself, without regard to Landseer, a
subject of extraordinary interest to physiologists, and inquirers into
the nature of the action of the brain and the distribution of nerve
power. Our informant is Mr. Solomon Hart, a Royal Academician remarkable
for his accomplishment and acute observation. 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 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.