The massive size of the dog is seen by comparing the figure with the height of the table and the door. The great creature practically fills the canvas. The pose is so finely conceived, the figure itself so admirably "modelled," to use the critic's phrase, that it seems almost like a work of sculpture. The light and shadow are carefully studied. The light seems to come from some source at the right, bringing out strongly the expressiveness of the dog's face. Landseer, we are told, was fond of introducing into his pictures a bit of sparkling metal. Here the reflected light on the gauntlets, like that on the spurs beside the King Charles Spaniels and on the helmet near the Sleeping Bloodhound, adds an effective touch to the composition.
Suspense has been a popular favorite among Landseer's works, and is one of the pictures referred to in the Memorial Verses published in "Punch" after the artist's death. This is the stanza describing it:—
"The lordly bloodhound with pricked ear,
And scent suspicious, watches for his lord
At the locked door, from whose sill, trickling clear,
The blood bespeaks surprise and treacherous sword."
IV
THE MONARCH OF THE GLEN
An annual visit to the Scottish Highlands was one of Landseer's pleasures. It was here that he learned to know the habits of the deer, the subject of many of his noblest paintings. His first journey to this region was as a young man of twenty-two, in company with a friend and fellow painter, Leslie. An incident of the excursion was a visit to Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott. The painter and the novelist had much in common in their attachment to dogs, their fondness for vigorous out-of-door exercise, and their love of nature.
Landseer was deeply impressed with the rugged grandeur of the Highland scenery. Especially was his imagination stirred by the mountain solitudes, the haunt of the deer, which Scott had described in his poems. A favorite resort was the valley of Glencoe, a singularly wild and romantic spot where a long narrow ravine is shut in between almost perpendicular hills.
The painter first made the acquaintance of the deer after the ordinary manner of the sportsman. For sport in itself, however, he cared little or nothing; the great attraction of hunting was the chance to study the action of animals. His friends laughed at him for a poor shot, but his true weapon was the pencil, not the gun. One day, while deerstalking, just as a magnificent shot came his way, the gillies were astonished to have the painter thrust the gun into their hands, and hastily take out his sketch-book. It was the life and not the death of the animal in which he was chiefly interested.
The Monarch of the Glen seems to be a picture caught in just this way. The very life and character of the animal are transferred to the canvas as by a snap shot of the camera. The stag has heard some strange sound or scented some new danger, and, mounting a hill, looks abroad to see if all is well. The responsibility of the herd is his, and he has a tender care for the doe and the young deer. He must always be on the alert.