Famous European Artists

"The Monkey who had seen the World" appeared at the same time as "The Chief's Return," and was engraved by Gibbon as "The Travelled Monkey." The monkey, who has returned from his travels and meets his friends, is dressed in a cocked hat and laced coat, with a wide cravat, breeches, buckled shoes, and a pendent eyeglass. The latter, especially, astonishes his friends. Thomas Baring gave fifteen hundred guineas for this painting, and bequeathed it to Lord Northbrook.

Another picture of this time, engraved by John Pye, was thus described in the Catalogue: "William Smith, being possessed of combativeness, and animated by a love of glory, enlisted in the 101st Regiment of Foot. At the Battle of Waterloo, on the 18th of July following, a cannon-ball carried off one of his legs; thus commenced and terminated William's military career. As he lay wounded on the field of battle, the dog here represented, blind with one eye, and having also a leg shattered apparently by a musket-ball, came and sat beside him, as 'twere for sympathy.

"The dog became William's prisoner, and, when a grateful country rewarded William's services by a pension and a wooden leg, he stumped about accompanied by the dog, his friend and companion. On the 15th of December, 1834, William died. His name never having been recorded in an extraordinary Gazette, this public monument, representing the dog at a moment when he was ill, and reclining against the mattress on which his master died, is erected to his memory by Edwin Landseer and John Pye."

In this year, 1827, there was also exhibited the well-known "Scene at Abbotsford," with the celebrated Maida, Sir Walter Scott's favorite dog, in the foreground. Six weeks after the picture was painted, the dog died. "High Life" and "Low Life," exhibited in 1831, noteworthy on account of their size, being eighteen inches by thirteen and a half, were bequeathed by Robert Vernon to the nation, and are now in the National Gallery. "High Life" represents a gentle and slender stag-hound in a handsome home; "Low Life," a brawny bulldog, in a rude stone doorway.

Hamerton says: "Everything that can be said about Landseer's knowledge of animals, and especially of dogs, has already been said. There was never very much to say, for there was no variety of opinion and nothing to discuss. Critics may write volumes of controversy about Turner and Delacroix, but Landseer's merits were so obvious to every one that he stood in no need of critical explanations. The best commentators on Landseer, the best defenders of his genius, are the dogs themselves; and so long as there exist terriers, deer-hounds, bloodhounds, his fame will need little assistance from writers upon art."

In 1832, "Spaniels of King Charles's Breed" was exhibited; now in the National Gallery, as a gift from Mr. Vernon. Both these spaniels, pets of Mr. Vernon, came to a violent end. The white Blenheim spaniel fell from a table and was killed; the true "King Charles" fell through the railings of a staircase, and was picked up dead at the bottom. The picture was painted in two days, illustrating Landseer's wonderful rapidity of execution. Yet this power, as Stephens well says, "followed more than twenty years' hard study."

Stephens records an amazing instance of Landseer's power. "A large party was assembled one evening at the house of a gentleman in the upper ranks of London society; crowds of ladies and gentlemen of distinction were present, including Landseer, who was, as usual, a lion; a large group gathered about the sofa where he was lounging. The subject turned on dexterity and facility in feats of skill with the hand. No doubt, the talk was ingeniously led in this direction by some who knew that Sir Edwin could do wonders of dexterous draughtsmanship, and were not unwilling to see him draw, but they did not expect what followed.

"A lady, lolling back on a settee, and rather tired of the subject, as ladies are apt to become when conversation does not appeal to their feelings or their interests, exclaimed, after many instances of manual dexterity had been cited: 'Well, there's one thing nobody has ever done, and that is to draw two things at once.' She had signalized herself by quashing a subject of conversation, and was about to return to her most becoming attitude, when Landseer said: 'Oh, I can do that; lend me two pencils, and I will show you.'

"The pencils were got, a piece of paper was laid on the table, and Sir Edwin, a pencil in each hand, drew simultaneously, and without hesitation, with the one hand the profile of a stag's head, and all its antlers complete, and with the other hand the perfect profile of a horse's head. Both drawings were full of energy and spirit, and, although, as the occasion compelled, not finished, they were, together and individually, quite as good as the master was accustomed to produce with his right hand alone; the drawing by the left hand was not inferior to that by the right."

In 1834, "Suspense," a bloodhound watching at a closed door for his wounded master, "A Highland Shepherd Dog rescuing Sheep from a Snowdrift," and "A Scene of the Old Time at Bolton Abbey" were exhibited. For the last, Landseer was paid two thousand dollars. It is now owned by the Duke of Devonshire, and is valued at more than fifteen thousand dollars. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert made etchings from this and from several others of Landseer's works.

In 1835, "A Sleeping Bloodhound" (Countess) was exhibited. It was bequeathed by Mr. Jacob Bell to the National Gallery. "The hound was, one dark night (at Wandsworth), anxiously watching her master's return from London. She heard the wheels of his gig and his voice, but, in leaping from the balcony where she watched, she missed her footing, and fell all but dead at her master's feet. Mr. Bell (the owner of the dog) placed the hound in his gig and returned to London, called Sir Edwin Landseer from his bed, and had a sketch made then and there of the dying animal."

In 1837 came "The Highland Shepherd's Chief Mourner," representing the interior of a plain Highland home, the coffin of the shepherd in the centre, covered by his maud for a pall, his only mourner the dog who rests his head upon the coffin. A well-worn Bible is on a stool in front, with a pair of spectacles.

Ruskin calls this picture "one of the most perfect poems or pictures (I use the words as synonymous) which modern times have seen. Here the exquisite execution of the crisp and glossy hair of the dog, the bright, sharp touching of the green bough beside it, the clear painting of the wood of the coffin and the folds of the blanket, are language, – language clear and expressive in the highest degree. But the close pressure of the dog's breast against the wood; the convulsive clinging of the paws, which has dragged the blanket off the trestle; the total powerlessness of the head, laid close and motionless upon its folds; the fixed and tearful fall of the eye in its utter hopelessness; the rigidity of repose, which marks that there has been no motion nor change in the trance of agony since the last blow was struck upon the coffin-lid; the spectacles marking the place where the Bible was last closed, indicating how lonely has been the life, how unwatched the departure, of him who is now laid solitary in his sleep, – these are all thoughts; thoughts by which the picture is separated at once from hundreds of equal merit as far as the mere painting goes, – by which it ranks as a work of high merit, and stamps its author, not as the neat imitator of the texture of a skin or the fold of a drapery, but as a Man of Mind."

"The Portrait of the Marquis of Stafford and the Lady Evelyn Gower," in 1838, is considered Landseer's best portrait-picture. "A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society," exhibited in 1838, is the picture of a large Newfoundland dog named Paul Pry. "He lies in the broad sunlight, and the shadow of his enormous head is cast sideways on his flank as white as snow. He looks seaward with a watchful eye, and his quickness of attention is hinted at by the gentle lifting of his ears. The painting of the hide, here rigid and there soft; here shining with reflected light, there like down; the masses of the hair, as the dog's habitual motions caused them to grow; the foreshortening of his paws as they hang over the edge of the quay, and the fine sense of chiaro-oscuro displayed in the whole, induce us to rank it," says Stephens, "with the painter's masterpieces."

Landseer was now thirty-six years old, famous and honored, a welcome guest at the palaces of royalty. In 1835 he had painted Dash, the favorite spaniel of the Duchess of Kent, the pet of whom Leslie speaks in his autobiography: "The Queen [Victoria], I am told, had studied her part very diligently, and she went through it extremely well. I don't know why, but the first sight of her in her robes brought tears into my eyes, and it had this effect upon many people; she looked almost like a child. She is very fond of dogs, and has one very favorite little spaniel, who is always on the lookout for her return when she has been from home. She had of course been separated from him on that day longer than usual, and when the state coach drove up to the steps of the palace, she heard him barking with joy in the hall, and exclaimed, 'There's Dash!' and was in a hurry to lay aside the sceptre and ball she carried in her hands, and take off the crown and robes, to go and wash little Dash."

In 1839 Landseer painted a picture of the Queen, which she gave to Prince Albert; the next year, the Queen and the Duke of Wellington reviewing a body of troops; in 1842, "The Queen and Children;" the Princess Royal with her pony and dog; the Queen and the Princess Royal; "Windsor Castle in the Present Time;" Islay, the Queen's pet terrier; Sharp, her favorite; Princess Alice in a cradle, with the dog Dandie Dinmont; Alice with the greyhound Eos, belonging to Prince Albert, and later "Her Majesty the Queen in the Highlands," "Prince Albert at Balmoral," which was engraved for the Queen's book, "Leaves from a Diary in the Highlands;" Princess Beatrice on horseback, the Queen at Osborne, and the Queen on a white horse.

Landseer was always a favorite with the royal family. In the last painful years of his life, when he suffered from overtaxed nerves, they were his devoted friends. He writes to his sister from Balmoral, June, 1867: "The Queen kindly commands me to get well here. She has to-day been twice to my room to show additions recently added to her already rich collection of photographs. Why, I know not, but since I have been in the Highlands I have for the first time felt wretchedly weak, without appetite. The easterly winds, and now again the unceasing cold rain, may possibly account for my condition, but I can't get out. Drawing tires me; however, I have done a little better to-day. The doctor residing in the castle has taken me in hand, and gives me leave to dine to-day with the Queen and the rest of the royal family… Flogging would be mild compared to my sufferings. No sleep, fearful cramp at night, accompanied by a feeling of faintness and distressful feebleness."

When Landseer was in good health, he was the most genial of companions. He was the intimate friend of Dickens, Thackeray, Browning, and other noted men. Leslie tells the following incident at a dinner party at the house of Sir Francis Chantrey, the sculptor. "Edwin Landseer, the best of mimics, gave a capital specimen of Chantrey's manner, and at Chantrey's own table. Dining at his house with a large party, after the cloth was removed from the beautifully polished table, – Chantrey's furniture was all beautiful, – Landseer's attention was called by him to the reflections, in the table, of the company, furniture, lamps, etc. 'Come and sit in my place and study perspective,' said our host, and went himself to the fire. As soon as Landseer was seated in Chantrey's chair, he turned round, and, imitating his voice and manner, said to him: 'Come, young man, you think yourself ornamental; now make yourself useful, and ring the bell.' Chantrey did as he was desired; the butler appeared, and was perfectly bewildered at hearing his master's voice, from the head of the table, order some claret, while he saw him standing before the fire."

Some one urged Sydney Smith to sit to Landseer for his portrait. He is said to have replied in the words of the Syrian messenger to the prophet Elisha: "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?"

At another time Landseer was talking to Sydney Smith about the drama, and said: "With your love of humor, it must be an act of great self-denial to abstain from going to the theatres." The witty clergyman replied, "The managers are very polite; they send me free admissions which I can't use, and, in return, I send them free admissions to St. Paul's."

Bewick, the artist, said: "Sir Edwin has a fine hand, a correct eye, refined perceptions, and can do almost anything but dance on the slack wire. He is a fine billiard-player, plays at chess, sings when with his intimate friends, and has considerable humor.

"Landseer is sensitive, delicate, with a fine hand for manipulation, – up to all the finesse of the art; has brushes of all peculiarities for all difficulties; turns his picture into all manner of situation and light; looks at it from between his legs, – and all with the strictly critical view of discovering hidden defects, falsities of drawing, or imperfections. See to what perfection he carries his perception of surface, hair, silk, wool, rock, grass, foliage, distance, fog, mist, smoke! how he paints the glazed or watery eye!"

A writer in the London Daily News says: "Sir Edwin's method of composition was remarkably like Scott's, except in the point of the early rising of the latter. Landseer went late to bed, and rose very late, coming down to breakfast at noon; but he had been composing perhaps for hours. Scott declared that the most fertile moments for resources, in invention especially, were those between sleeping and waking, or rather before opening the eyes from sleep, while the brain was wide awake. This, much prolonged, was Landseer's time for composing his pictures. His conception once complete, nothing could exceed the rapidity of his execution."

In 1840, at the country house of Mr. William Wells, Landseer had his first violent illness associated with severe depression, to which attacks he was subject all the rest of his life. He went abroad for a time, travelling in France, Switzerland, and Austria, but he was constantly longing for his studio, where, he said, "his works were starving for him."

"Coming events cast their shadows before them," sometimes called "The Challenge," a vigorous stag bellowing his defiance to hunters or other animals of his kind; "Shoeing," which has been engraved many times, the mare, Old Betty, belonging to his friend Mr. Jacob Bell; and "The Otter Speared," a huntsman surrounded by yelping dogs, while he uplifts a poor otter on his spear, were all exhibited in 1844, and won great praise.

From Sir Edwin's sporting-scenes many persons gained the impression that he was a keen sportsman, which was not the case. Ewen Cameron, an old forest keeper of Glencoe, who for more than twenty-four years accompanied Landseer with the sketch-book and gun, tells how the highland gillies were annoyed when a magnificent stag came bounding toward them, and Sir Edwin hastily thrust his gun into their hands, saying, "Here! take! take this!" while he pulled out his book and began to sketch. They murmured greatly in Gaelic, but, says Cameron, "Sir Edwin must have had some Gaelic in him, for he was that angry for the rest of the day, it made them very careful of speaking Gaelic in his hearing after."

The companion pictures "Peace" and "War," painted in 1846 – the former a beautiful scene on a cliff overlooking Dover harbor, the latter a ruined cottage with a dying horse and dead rider near the door – were sold to Mr. Vernon for seventy-five hundred dollars. The publishers of the engravings from these pictures paid Landseer fifteen thousand dollars for them. "The Stag at Bay," belonging to the Marquis of Breadalbane, one of Landseer's strongest pictures, appeared the same year.

In 1848, "A Random Shot," one of the artist's most pathetic pictures, was painted. Stephens thus describes it: "It is a snow piece, the scene high on the mountain, whose most distant ridges rise above the mist. The snow lies smooth; and for miles, so far as the eye can penetrate the vapor, there is nothing but snow, which covers, but does not hide, the shapes of the hilltops. A few footprints show that a doe has come hither, attracted, doubtless, by her knowledge of a pool of unfrozen water which would assuage her thirst. Some careless shooter, firing into a herd of deer, had hit the doe, whose fawn was with her, and, mortally wounded, she came to die; the poor fawn had followed. There the victim fell; there the innocent one strove, long after the mothers form was cold, to obtain milk where an unfailing source had been. The mother has fallen on her side; the long limbs, that once went so swiftly, are useless, and the last breath of her nostrils has melted the snow, so that, stained with her blood, the water trickled downwards until it froze again."

Monkhouse says, in his "Landseer Studies": "He painted dogs and deer as no man ever painted them before; he inspired one with a humor and both with a poetry beyond all parallel in art; he added to this a feeling for the grandeur and sublimity of nature, which gave to his pictures a charm and a sentiment which all can feel; he never painted anything false or ignoble, vulgar or unmanly; he won as an artist purely the affection and admiration of a whole people as scarcely any man, not a poet, or a soldier, or a statesman, or a philosopher, has ever won them before…

"Landseer may be said to have mastered other animals, but the deer mastered him. He raised dogs almost to the scale of humanity, but deer raised him to a level of higher being. His love for the deer may not have been so deep, but it was more elevating, less self-regarding, and it ended at last in stimulating his imagination to produce pictures deeper in thought and more awful in sentiment than any attempted by an animal painter before."

A writer in Cornhill says: "Landseer's perceptions of character were remarkably acute. Not only did he know what was passing in the hearts of dogs, but he could read pretty closely into those of men and women also. The love of truth was an instinct with him; his common phrase about those he estimated highly was that 'they had the true ring.' This was most applicable to himself; there was no alloy in his metal; he was true to himself and to others. This was proved in many passages of his life, when nearly submerged by those disappointments and troubles which are more especially felt by sensitive organizations such as that which it was his fortune – or misfortune – to possess.

"It was a pity that Landseer, who might have done so much for the good of the animal kind, never wrote on the subject of their treatment. He had a strong feeling against the way some dogs are tied up, only allowed their freedom now and then. He used to say a man would fare better tied up than a dog, because the former can take his coat off, but a dog lives in his forever. He declared a tied-up dog, without daily exercise, goes mad, or dies, in three years.

"His wonderful power over dogs is well known. An illustrious lady asked him how it was that he gained his knowledge. 'By peeping into their hearts, ma'am,' was his answer. I remember once being wonderfully struck with the mesmeric attraction he possessed with them. A large party of his friends were with him at his house in St. John's Wood; his servant opened the door; three or four dogs rushed in, one a very fierce-looking mastiff. The ladies recoiled, but there was no fear; the creature bounded up to Landseer, treated him like an old friend, with most expansive demonstrations of delight. Some one remarking 'how fond the dog seemed of him,' he said, 'I never saw it before in my life.'

"Would that horse-trainers could have learned from him how horses could be broken in or trained more easily by kindness than by cruelty. Once when visiting him he came in from his meadow looking somewhat dishevelled and tired. 'What have you been doing?' we asked him. 'Only teaching some horses tricks for Astley's, and here is my whip,' he said, showing us a piece of sugar in his hand. He said that breaking in horses meant more often breaking their hearts, and robbing them of all their spirit…"

In 1850, the "Dialogue of Waterloo" was produced, with the Duke of Wellington and his daughter-in-law, the Marchioness Douro, on the battlefield. It is said that eighteen thousand dollars were paid for the copyright of this painting.

This year, Landseer was made a knight, at the age of forty-eight. The next year, 1851, he painted the well-known "Monarch of the Glen." "The Midsummer Night's Dream" of the same year, painted for the great engineer, Isambard K. Brunel, who ordered a series of Shakespearian subjects from different artists, at four hundred guineas each, was afterwards sold to Earl Brownlow for fourteen thousand dollars.

In 1857, in "Scene in Brae-mar – Highland Deer," we have, says Stephens, "the grandest stag which came from his hands. This was sold in 1868 for four thousand guineas." "The Maid and the Magpie," painted for Jacob Bell, and by him presented to the nation, appeared in 1858. The pretty girl is about to milk a cow, but turns to listen to her lover, when a magpie steals a silver spoon from one of the wooden shoes at her side. In connection with this picture, M. F. Sweetser tells this incident:

"Sir Edwin once painted a picture for Jacob Bell for one hundred guineas, which the latter soon afterwards sold for two thousand guineas. Placing the latter amount in Landseer's bank, Mr. Bell narrated the circumstance, suppressing both his own name and that of the purchaser, and adding that the seller would not keep the money, but wanted another picture painted for it. The master was so charmed with this generous act that he said, 'Well, he shall have a good one.' And afterwards, pressing Bell to tell him who his benefactor was, the latter exclaimed, in the words of Nathan, the Israelite: 'I am the man.' The picture which resulted was 'The Maid and the Magpie.'"

In 1860, "Flood in the Highlands," called by Stephens "probably the strongest of all his pictures," was painted. He was now fifty-eight. "I remember him," says Stephens, "during the painting of this picture, on the Tuesday before it was sent to the Academy, – putting a few touches on the canvas. He looked as if about to become old, although his age by no means justified the notion; it was not that he had lost activity or energy, or that his form had shrunk, for he moved as firmly and swiftly as ever, – indeed he was rather demonstrative, stepping on and off the platform in his studio with needless display, – and his form was stout and well filled.

"Nevertheless, without seeming to be overworked, he did not look robust, and he had a nervous way remarkable in so distinguished a man, one who was usually by no means unconscious of himself, and yet, to those he liked, full of kindness. The wide green shade which he wore above his eyes projected straight from his forehead, and cast a large shadow on his plump, somewhat livid features, and, in the shadow, one saw that his eyes had suffered. The gray 'Tweed' suit, and its sober trim, a little emphatically 'quiet,' marked the man; so did his stout, not fat nor robust, figure; rapid movements, and utterances that glistened with prompt remarks, sharp, concise, with quiet humor, but not seeking occasions for wit, and imbued throughout with a perfect frankness, distinguished the man."

In 1864, "Man proposes, God disposes," was painted, an Arctic incident suggested by the finding of the relics of Sir John Franklin. The purchaser of this picture, Sweetser says, paid Landseer twenty-five hundred pounds for it.

In 1865, "The Connoisseurs" was painted, and presented by Sir Edwin to the Prince of Wales. It represents two dogs looking over the shoulders of the artist, while he makes a drawing. Monkhouse says: "The man behind his work was seen through it, – sensitive, variously gifted, manly, genial, tender-hearted, simple, and unaffected, a lover of animals and children and humanity; and if any one wishes to see at a glance nearly all we have written, let him look at his own portrait, painted by himself, with a canine connoisseur on either side."