E. D. Cuming

“ The great popularity of W. R. Bigg's pictures of child-life led the dealers to persuade Morland to take up the same line of work, and in his pictures of child-life the artist shows himself what we know him to have been—a lover of children and one who had perfect understanding of them. The insight with which he portrayed children is only equalled by that which distinguishes his animal paintings. Morland's horses, ponies, asses, calves, and pigs, are entirely his own; they possess a character which stamps them as the work of one who had almost uncanny knowledge. ”

“ He rarely painted a well-bred horse; the animal that appealed to him was the farmer's work-horse or the slave of the carter, and on these he expended his greatest skill. Only an artist who was also a horseman could paint the horse as he painted it. He has been described as a "pig painter," but this refers rather to the success with which he proved the artistic possibilities of subjects so unpromising than to the number of works in which pigs occur, though it is admitted that he was fond of painting such pictures. ”

“ His career from 1791 to 1799 was one long series of flights from one place to another to avoid the creditors who pressed for money. From time to time Mr. Wedd arranged his affairs in such wise that he could show his face in London; and at other times men who wanted pictures relieved him from his difficulties to the same end; but viewing these nine years as a whole, the general impression left on the mind is one of a hunted animal—now in hiding in the Isle of Wight, now in Leicestershire, now in mean lodgings in a poor part of London, now out of sight. ”