Edwin Landseer

“ Landseer never knew the blessing of a noble discontent. But he contributed to the quiet joy of a million homes; and it is not for us to say, "It is beautiful; but is it art?" Neither need we ask whether the name of Landseer will endure with those of Raphael and Leonardo. Edwin Landseer did a great work, and the world is better for his having lived; for his message was one of gentleness, kindness and beauty.
GUSTAVE DORE
Lacroix told Dore one day, early in his life in Paris, that he should illustrate a new edition of his works in four volumes, and he sent them to him. ”

“ No English painter has ever been more appreciated and loved in his own country than Sir Edwin Landseer.
Questions about the artist. Who painted this picture? When did he first begin to draw? How many brothers and sisters did he have? How many of them liked to draw? Where did they live? What question did the father ask at the breakfast table? How did they decide? Where did they go? What animal did Edwin choose first? Who helped him? Where was “Edwin’s studio”? ”

“ In 1867 the four lions which he had modelled for the base of the Nelson Monument in Trafalgar Square, London, were unveiled, and with “The Swannery invaded by Eagles” (1869) he achieved his last triumph. After four years more, full of suffering, mainly of broken art and shattered mental powers, Sir Edwin Landseer died on the 1st of October 1873, and was buried, ten days later, in St Paul’s Cathedral. Those who would see the full strength of Landseer’s brush should examine his sketches and the like in the Victoria and Albert Museum and similar works. ”

“ SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.
The boy Edwin began to draw very early in life. Miss Meteyard quotes these words from John Landseer: "These two fields were Edwin's first studio. Many a time have I lifted him over this very stile. I then lived in Foley Street, and nearly all the way between Marylebone and Hampstead was open fields. It was a favorite walk with my boys; and one day when I had accompanied them, Edwin stopped by this stile to admire some sheep and cows which were quietly grazing. At his request I lifted him over, and, finding a scrap of paper and a pencil in my pocket, I made him sketch a cow. ”

“ His fine genius and his handsome person, of neither of which at any time he seemed himself to be in the slightest degree conscious, completed the charm. Edwin Landseer, all the world's favorite, and the excellent Stanfield, came a few months later, in the Devonshire-Terrace days; but another painter-friend was George Cattermole, who had then enough and to spare of fun as well as fancy to supply ordinary artists and humorists by the dozen, and wanted only a little more ballast and steadiness to have had all that could give attraction to good-fellowship. ”

“ Landseer a house? When Edwin was thirteen years old, which of his pictures were exhibited? What became of the sketches he made when he was a boy? Tell about the Newfoundland dog and the lion. What did the keeper at the Royal Academy call Edwin? What did Sir Edwin Landseer think animals could do that made them seem like people? Tell about the picture of the old white horse. Tell how Sir Edwin Landseer went hunting. Why did he not shoot? Tell about the drawings he made with both hands. How did people like Sir Edwin Landseer and his paintings?
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(Click on illustration for larger view.) ”

“ PAGANINI. By Sir Edwin Landseer.
"I like that picture," said Sir Robert, "because the face is the nearest resemblance to my old mother I ever saw. There's a couple of curious sea pieces," pointing to a pair of pictures done on two pieces of rough deal board—"Storm" and "Calm." "They were painted by Richard Dadd, the mad artist. He had an illusion that his father was the devil. He was pronounced mad, and was confined in Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum. But come upstairs."
On the upper landing hang several remarkable examples of Dadd's work. One is a canvas executed before he went out of his mind ”

“ If the popularity of a painter were the measure of his artistic greatness, Sir Edwin Landseer's would be among the foremost of the world's great names. At the height of his career probably no other living painter was so familiar and so well beloved throughout the English-speaking world. ”

“ There was a small house and garden here, and the barn was made over into a studio.
Sir Edwin was not a very good business man, and he left the management of all his affairs to his father, who sold his pictures for him and kept his accounts.
Landseer was only sixteen years old when he exhibited his wonderful picture called "Fighting Dogs Getting Wind." A very rich man whose praise meant a great deal at that time bought the picture, and Sir Edwin's success was assured. After that so many people brought their pets for him to paint that he had to keep a list, and each must wait his turn. ”

“ After Charles Landseer had all but completed the painting of his celebrated picture of "Charles I. at Edge Hill," he persuaded his brother Edwin to paint in a dog. This Sir Edwin consented to do; and, after the work was engraved, the original got into the hands of a dealer, who cleverly cut out the dog, and had another put in place of it. He secured the services of an able artist to paint a background for the animal which had been so ignominiously deprived of the honour of reclining in the presence of Charles I. This he sold as a Landseer as, indeed, it was ”

“ Besides these he produced 'Edie Ochiltree,' after Sir Edwin Landseer and five other illustrations, after Kidd, Stanfield, J. W. Wright, and Alexander Fraser, for the author's edition of the 'Waverley Novels,' 1829-33. He died in London on 29 Nov. 1852, aged 61.
Robert Mitchell (1820–1873) , his son, born on 19 May 1820, engraved in mezzotint 'Tapageur, a fashionable Member of the Canine Society,' after Sir Edwin Landseer, 1852, and 'The Parish Beauty' and 'The Pastor's Pet,' a pair after Alfred Rankley, 1853 and 1854 ”

“ His sketches are remarkable for their truth to nature, and many of them would do no discredit to Landseer himself.
Lay a piece of thin paper over the drawing-lesson, and trace the lines of the picture. After a little practice, try to copy it without-tracing.
From Sir Edwin Landseer's painting. In outline by Mr. Harrison Weir, as a drawing lesson. A SMART HORSE.
One morning, when the men went to the stable, our horse, Jenny, was missing from her stall. On looking around, they found her in another room, eating meal out of a chest. ”

“ The immense and profoundly dramatic picture called “A Flood in the Highlands” (1860) more than reinstated the painter before the public, but friends still saw ground for uneasiness. Extreme nervous excitability manifested itself in many ways, and in the choice (1864) of the dreadful subject of “Man Proposes, God Disposes,” bears clumsily clambering among relics of Sir John Franklin’s party, there was occult pathos, which some of the artist’s intimates suspected, but did not avow. In 1862 and 1863 Landseer produced nothing ”

“ The Makers of British Art (London, 1902) .
1 John Landseer died February 29, 1852, aged ninety-one (or eighty-three, according to Cosmo Monkhouse) . Sir Edwin’s eldest brother Thomas, an A.R.A. and a famous engraver, whose interpretations of his junior’s pictures have made them known throughout the world, was born in 1795, and died January 20, 1880. Charles Landseer, R.A., and Keeper of the Royal Academy, the second brother, was born in 1799, and died July 22, 1879. John Landseer’s brother Henry was a painter of some reputation, who emigrated to Australia. ”

“ It was made from a design of Lord Waltzaghane, one of the first masters in point of art of the Young England School, and is universally admired. May I include it with the other articles, sir? I'm sure you'll like it."
Edwin. "Very well, then; but that's enough. Come away, Emmy."
Emma. "Oh, stop one minute—look here—did you ever? Isn't it elegant? What is it, pray?"
Shopman. "Why, ma'am, that is a clothes-horse, made from a drawing of Edwin Landseer's. Prince Albert has the companion to it."
Emma. "Oh, do buy it, Edwin; I wont ask you for anything else, indeed."
Edwin. "Very well, then ”

“ The rest of his life was mainly devoted to etching and engraving his brother's drawings and pictures [see Landseer, Sir Edwin] . In 1823 he worked with great vigour, and engraved Edwin's picture of the ‘Rat-catchers’ and five of his drawings of wild beasts. These last plates, with others by him after Rubens and other artists, with an ‘Essay on Carnivora’ by his father, were issued in a volume in 1823. Thomas's engravings after Edwin have a freedom which shows that he was already emancipating himself from the somewhat formal style of his father. ”

“ Bewick, the artist, said: "Sir Edwin has a fine hand, a correct eye, refined perceptions, and can [Pg 385] do almost anything but dance on the slack wire. He is a fine billiard-player, plays at chess, sings when with his intimate friends, and has considerable humor.
"Landseer is sensitive, delicate, with a fine hand for manipulation,—up to all the finesse of the art; has brushes of all peculiarities for all difficulties; turns his picture into all manner of situation and light ”

“ We do not really believe that our wickedness deserves cancer or leprosy.
I never wished to push myself into the society of celebrated persons for the purpose of getting acquainted with them, but I plead guilty to that degree of curiosity which likes to see them in the flesh. I knew Landseer by sight, and probably rather astonished him once in a London street by taking my hat off as if he had been Prince Albert. He used to pass an evening from time to time at Leslie's house, and I met him there. He then seemed a very jovial, merry English humorist, with a natural talent for satire and mimicry ”

“ The father of Landseer was an enthusiastic lover of art. He had sprung from a long line of artistic workers in precious metals; and to use a pencil with skill he regarded as the chief end of man.
Long before his children knew their letters, they were taught to make pictures. Indeed, all children can make pictures before they can write. For a play-spell, each day John Landseer and his boys tramped across Hampstead Heath to where there were donkeys, sheep, goats and cows grazing; then all four would sit down on the grass before some chosen subject and sketch the patient model. ”

“ Not only did Landseer rival some of the Dutch masters of the seventeenth century in painting fur and feathers, but he depicted animals with sympathy, as if he believed that "the dumb, driven cattle" possess souls. His dogs and other animals are so human as to look as if they were able to speak. The painter was the son of John Landseer, the engraver, and was born in London. ”

“ Even now he cannot ignore the strong love of human beings for these creatures; if they are omitted the picture loses its interest to the majority of eyes. Every one knows how wonderfully popular the works of Landseer have been, and he was an animal painter, and his subjects chiefly suggested by sport. The same spirit that inspired the Cave-dweller to engrave the mammoth on the slab of ivory still lives in the hearts of men.
There is a beautiful etching of "The Poacher" (to which I shall have to recur) ; he is in the wood, and his dog is watching his upraised finger. ”

“ Like the bloodhound in the picture of Suspense, and like The Highland Shepherd's Chief Mourner, the horse is raised by the dignity of suffering to the level of human emotion.
IX A DISTINGUISHED MEMBER OF THE HUMANE SOCIETY
In his walks about the city and in the country Landseer's eye was always quick to catch sight of a fine animal of any kind. To his remarkable habits of observation is due the perfect fidelity to nature which we find in all his work. One day, in a street in London, he met a Newfoundland dog carrying a basket of flowers. ”

“ There are several portraits of Landseer. As a 'boy he was painted by J. Hayter, then himself a boy, as ‘The Cricketer,’ exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1815, and in 1816 C. R. Leslie, in ‘Time Death of Rutland.' There are two lithographs after drawings by Count D’Orsay, 1848. He drew himself in 1829 as 'The Falconer,' engraved in 1830 for ‘The Amulet’ by Thomas Landseer, who in the same year engraved a portrait of him after Edward Duppa. ”

“ No painter who ever lived is so universally known as Landseer, and this is because his father and brothers made it their life-business to reproduce his work by engraving.
Occasionally, rich ladies would want their own portraits painted with a favorite dog at their feet, or men wanted themselves portrayed on horseback, and so Landseer found himself with more orders than he could well care for. People put their names, or the name of their dog, on his waiting-list, and some of the dogs died of old age before the name was reached. ”

“ Henry Graves, the famous print-seller, of Pall Mall, who probably knew Landseer better than any other man. The picture shows a sheep with twins by its side, and was the only painting the artist ever finished straightaway, instead of working on a number at the same time, as was his wont.
The picture was in the possession of Mr. Graves. He received a communication from America, saying that Landseer's work had never been seen in America; could it be lent for exhibition for a month in New York, in consideration of which they would take 500 guineas' worth of proofs, and insure it for £1,000? ”

“ The dog at the painter's right seems to express approval, while his more critical comrade on the other side reserves judgment till the picture is completed.
It would appear that Landseer's dog pictures were faithful enough to satisfy the judgment of the originals. "We cannot help believing," writes an admiring critic, [22] "that the manner in which Landseer drew the forms and expressed the character of the canine race would have been rewarded with the gratitude, if not the full satisfaction of such a critic.... ”