Animal painter

“ Why should not I speak of the happiest animal in creation? A great painter, Karel du Jardin, has taken a liking for it: he has drawn it in all its attitudes, and has shown all its pleasures and all its tastes. ”

“ With Veronese, there is no curling nor crisping, no glossiness nor sparkle, hardly even hair, a mere type of hide, laid on with a few scene-painter's touches. But the essence of dog is there, the entire magnificent, generic animal type, muscular and living, and with broad, pure, sunny daylight upon him, and bearing his true and harmonious relation of color to all color about him. This is ideal treatment.
The same treatment is found in the works of all the greatest men, they all paint the lion more than his mane, and the horse rather than his hide ”

“ To make the elephant keep this position, an attendant threw fruit and nuts into the open mouth, but sometimes he only pretended to throw them. This made the animal very angry, and as if knowing that the painter rather than his servant was the one to blame, he finally turned to him and dashed a quantity of water from his trunk over the paper on which the painter was sketching his portrait. ”

“ Whatever may be said of the more virile and masculine art of other great animal painters, Rosa Bonheur, by her truthfulness, her science, her close association and intimate communion with her animal world, by the glad and healthy vigor which her paintings breathe, has taught the world the great lesson that there are intelligence, will, love, and even soul, in animals. ”

“ They showed the experimental and adventurous spirit of the artist, the spirit that does not avoid but attempt difficult things; as where the draughtsman had represented the action of the stag when he swings his head clean round and noses towards his tail, an action familiar enough in the horse. But there are many modern animal-painters who would set themselves something of a task in rendering it truly. ”

“ In the childhood of the race, as in the childhood of the individual, animals were the favorite art subject, as we see in the ancient sculpture of various peoples. Centuries before the age of painting, the figure decorations of temples and palaces consisted largely of lions and horses. Critics still visit the British museum to marvel at the lion hunt so realistically depicted on an Assyrian bas-relief, and the noble cavalcade of horses forming the frieze of the Parthenon. The best modern animal painters have something to learn from these. ”

“ VI. PETS IN ARTIST LIFE.
For the artist pets have a peculiar value. Not only are they companions and live playthings—they are also “properties.” Portrait and landscape painters use them as accessories; animal painters and sculptors find in them their models. They live in close companionship with their human friends, and the tie between them is usually warm and lasting. An exception might be the cat whose fur was sacrificed to the early genius of Benjamin West. In default of brushes, the lad used first the long hairs from her tail, then the shorter ones from her body—until she was half-shorn. ”

“ In the same sense we may understand the application of the term to modern animal painting, distinguished as it has been by peculiar attention to the colours, lustre, and texture of skin; nor is it in art alone that the definition will hold. In animals themselves, when their sublimity depends upon their muscular forms or motions, or necessary and principal attributes, as perhaps more than all others in the horse, we do not call them picturesque, but consider them as peculiarly fit to be associated with pure historical subject. ”

“ And there, where affluence is unknown, and elegance unconsulted,—where no rich tapestry shields the artist’s easel from the light,—is a work of magic art and mystic mystery, which has been seen by hundreds, and will be by thousands. It is a rare bright picture—a childish, dimpled face, with deep, wondrous blue eyes, and thick clustering curls; one round arm is flung over the shaggy neck of a large black dog, as if to show how perfectly the spiritual part of nature can overcome the animal; and the whole picture represents some half-embodied ideal, which is in future years to become a reality. ”

“ We should like to see one or two of our popular artists, who persist in painting camels and desert scenes without ever having been to the East, just sit down here quietly for one day and paint a camel's head; not flinching from the work, but mastering the wonderful texture and shagginess of his thick coat or mane, its massive beauty, and its infinite gradations of colour. Such a sitter no portrait painter ever had in England. Feed him up first, get a boy to keep the flies from him, and he will sit almost immoveably through the day. ”

“ Animal Painting.—In all early schools of representative art from the time of the cave-dwellers downwards, the artist has done better with animals than with the human figure, and there is no epoch of the art at which the portrayal of animals has not flourished. (On Egyptian and Assyrian animals see § 7.) In Greece the representations of animals on coins are so varied and so excellent that we may be sure that the praise given to the pictures of the same creatures by contemporary artists is not overdrawn. ”

“ It was late in the history of painting when the animal came into his own, when the perfection of technique made every branch of art possible. We may date the beginning of modern animal art from the seventeenth century Dutch school. From this time on, the most mediocre artist could make a presentable animal picture. But it is only now and then that an artist has attained high distinction in the subject. ”

“ On this little bird nature has profusely lavished her most splendid colours; the most perfect azure, the most beautiful gold, the most dazzling red, are for ever in contrast, and help to embellish the plumes of his majestic head. The richest palette of the most luxuriant painter could never invent anything to be compared to the variegated tints, with which this insect bird is arrayed. ”

“ This would be practically impossible were it not for the kindly help we receive from the human imagination, which is ever ready to accept a mere hint and build upon it a whole world; to fill in all discrepancies; and, given a few scratches of pen or pencil, to construct therefrom a complete representation of nature. How peculiarly human is this mental attitude is proved by the fact that no animal is ever known to recognize the most realistic painting as anything more than simple paint and canvas. ”

“ Landscape, in modern times so important a branch of painting, is also an outcome of the traditional figure-piece, for at first it is nothing but a background to a scene in which human figures are prominent. Marine Painting is a branch of landscape art differentiated from this, but supplied at first in the same way with figure-interest. The origin of Animal Painting is to be sought partly in figure-pieces, where, as in Egypt and Assyria, animals play a part in scenes of human life, and partly in landscapes, in which cattle, &c., are introduced to enliven the foreground. ”

“ The form, the expression, the colouring, the glittering transparent eye, the grave smile, all are copied as if to make an artificial man. The painter mixed his half-tints and his delicate shades, and dappled over the animals, or figured the feathers of birds, in a manner never attempted in the later ages. ”

“ It is easy to see how, from painting the markings of the creature’s skin upon the body of the vessel, the painter should come gradually to delineate parts of the creature or even the whole creature, but we should not expect him to paint a creature distinct in kind from that modeled, thus confusing or entirely separating the conceptions; this has been done, apparently, in the vase illustrated in Fig. 202, where the plastic form represents a puma and the painting upon the sides seems intended for an alligator. ”

“ There is no such other artist! To think of such a masterpiece being destroyed!” Now, when all the White Egrets (and let me tell you they are all masterpieces) have been destroyed, it will be quite impossible to replace any one of them; so that that kind of bird—or any other kind of bird or animal that has been shot and shot till there are no more of it left—will have gone in just the same way that a picture goes, when you burn it or tear it to pieces. But is there any picture of a bird or animal, that is so beautiful or so wonderful as that bird or animal itself? ”

“ No one can, one would suppose, pass through the galleries in Cromwell Road and remain quite insensible to the beauties of animal life. Beauty of form and beauty of colour are conspicuously combined in many species of birds and insects. And much of this colour-beauty and splendid iridescence is known to be due to minute scales, to thin films of air or fluid, and to microscopically fine lines developed upon scales or feathers. But there is one phase of beauty which cannot be exhibited in the museum—the beauty that comes of life as opposed to death. ”

“ Fig. 31.—Lion of Reddish Granite. (British Museum.)
Egyptian sculpture, thus under the ban of religious conservatism, always dealt more successfully with the forms of animals than with human beings and deities. In hunting scenes there is wonderful spirit and character in the drawing of the dogs, and of the animals which they attack. The artist attained an elastic and life-like force in the representation of all animal forms, even when these were compelled into monstrous combinations with human members. ”

“ He devoted himself to painting flowers, fruit and subjects of still life, but afterwards turned to animal-painting, and executed with the greatest skill and spirit hunting pieces and combats of wild animals. ”

“ What constitutes a good animal picture? Correct drawing, certainly, but this is not enough. The animal must seem to be alive. He must show, too, his distinguishing characteristics. We know by his looks what manner of beast he is, gentle or fierce, sly, heavy or fleet-footed. It requires no mean ability to produce a real work of animal art. It means a faithful study of the nature and habits of the animal, and a special aptitude on the part of the artist. Two common faults are conspicuous in much of the animal art given to children. ”

“ A master of the oil, water-colour and pastel mediums, an accomplished painter and a skilful draughtsman, he ranks also as a sculptor of distinguished ability. He has treated the human figure with notable power, but it is by his representations of the larger wild animals, mainly the felidae, that he chiefly established his reputation ”

“ This attitude must necessarily be given up as soon as a conscious tendency is assumed in “animal art.” When we regard the secondary sexual characters in the manner of Darwin—as results of an æsthetic choice—we cannot help missing all the æsthetic qualities of harmony and composition, which are never expected, and therefore never missed, in the objects of nature. If the proper distinction between art and nature is maintained, it will be possible to combine an unabated admiration for the marvels of beauty in bird life with a denial of “animal art.” ”

“ The English school of painters in oil, at the present day, may boast of some branches of the art in which it is not at all behind the French, Flemings, and Belgians. Nay, more, there is at least one living English painter who is unrivalled. It is true that making likenesses of dogs and pictures of deer are not to be counted as among the giddy walks of high art. ”

“ Quitting that ground, which proves too slippery for his feet, the Bishop goes on to notice the moral and aesthetic difference between man and the lower animals. No animal, says his lordship, shows "anything approaching to a love of art." Now we are quite aware that no animal except man ever painted a picture or chiselled a statue, for these things involve a very high development of the artistic faculty. But the appreciation of form and color, which is the foundation of all fine art, is certainly manifested by the lower animals, and by some fathem to an extreme degree. ”

“ In northern art animals have always played an important part, and the motives of medieval decoration are largely drawn from this source, while beast symbolism brings them into vogue in connexion with religious themes. In Italian and early Flemish and German art animals are as a rule only accessories, though some artists in all these schools take special delight in them; and when, early in the 17th century, they begin to take the chief place, the motive is often found in Paradise, where Adam and Eve lord it over the animal creation. ”

“ In their curious masks, carved into forms the most quaint and grotesque, and in many of their carvings of animals, partaking as they do of a half human, half animal character, we have abundant evidence of what authors have characterized as savage taste in sculpture. ”

“ On this vast surface every bird is represented in its full dimensions. Large as is the paper, it is sometimes (as in the Male Wild Turkey, pl. 1.) barely sufficient for the purpose. In other cases, it enables the painter to group his figures, in the most beautiful and varied attitudes, on the trees or plants they frequent. Some are feeding, others darting, pursuing, or capturing their prey: all have life and animation. ”

“ The living dog, then, arriving there, had no sooner seen the painted one than, precisely as if it had been a living animal and the very one for whom he had a mortal hatred, he broke loose from his keeper and rushed at it with such vehemence, in order to bite it, that he struck his head full against the wall and dashed it all to pieces. ”

“ With reference to the origin of these animal sculptures many writers appear inclined to the view that they are purely decorative and ornamental in character, i.e., that they are attempts at close imitations of nature in the sense demanded by high art, and that they owe their origin to the artistic instinct alone. ”