For a number of years Landseer lived and painted in his father’s house in a poor little room without even a carpet. All the furniture, we are told, consisted of three cheap chairs and an easel. Later he had a fine studio not far from Regent’s Park. There were a small house and garden, and the barn was made over into a studio.
Sir Edwin was not a very good business man, so he left all his financial affairs to his father, who sold his pictures for him and kept his accounts.
At twenty-four Landseer became a member of the Royal Academy, which was an unusual honor for so young a man.
This story is told of him. At a social gathering in the home of a well-known leader of society in London, where Landseer was present, the company had been talking about skill with the hands, when some one remarked that no one had ever been found who could draw two things at once. Landseer replied, “Oh, I can do that; lend me two pencils and I will show you.” Then with one hand he quickly drew the head of a horse, at the same time drawing with the other hand a deer’s head and antlers. Both sketches were so good that they might well have been drawn with the same hand and with much more care.
Landseer made a special study of lions, too. A lion died at the park menagerie, and Landseer dissected its body and studied and drew every part. He painted many pictures of lions. He modeled the lions at the base of the Nelson Monument in Trafalgar Square, London, unveiled in 1867.
When Sir Edwin Landseer went to visit Scotland one of his fellow travelers was Sir Walter Scott, the great novelist. The two became warm friends. Sir Walter Scott tells us: “Landseer’s dogs were the most magnificent things I ever saw, leaping and bounding and grinning all over the canvas.” Landseer painted Sir Walter Scott’s handsome dog, “Maida Vale,” many times, and named his studio for the dog.
Although Landseer painted so many wild animals, birds, and hunting scenes, he did not care to shoot animals or to hunt. His sketchbook was his only weapon. Sometimes he would hire guides to take him into the wildest parts of the country in search of game. But they felt quite disgusted with him when, a great deer bounding toward them, he would merely make a sketch of it in his book. He knew how to use a gun, though, and sometimes did so with great success.
But it was the study of live animals that interested him most. Sir Edwin Landseer felt that animals understand, feel, and reason just like people, so he painted them as happy, sad, gay, dignified, frivolous, rich, poor, and in all ways, just like human beings.
Landseer did and said all he could against the custom of cutting, or “cropping,” the ears of dogs. He held that nature intended to protect the ears of dogs that “dig in the dirt,” and man should not interfere. People paid attention to what he said, and the custom lost favor.
In 1850 the honor of knighthood was conferred upon the artist.