Sir Edwin Landseer

by Frederic George Stephens

Here is a criticism on “Fighting Dogs getting Wind,” from “The Examiner,” p. 269, 1818, in a review of the exhibition of the Society of Painters in Oil and Water Colours. After refering

Return from Deer Stalking.

to the merits of certain landscapes which commanded the critic’s admiration, we are told, “Their pictures alone would elevate the character of this Exhibition; but when we add the ‘Fighting Dogs getting Wind,’ by our English Schneiders, young Mr. E. Landseer, and the masterly Drawings and Paintings by Mr. Haydon, we give overflowing evidence of the justness of our preference of this Exhibition. It behoves the Keeper of the room to be careful how he admits any animals of the same species before the ‘Fighting Dogs,’ when we recollect the exciting effect which a ‘Mastiff’ by this young Animal Painter had last year upon a canine judge admitted to the room. We hope that E. Landseer will not deviate from his large touch into a littleness of style. His may be called the great style of Animal Painting, as far as it relates to the execution and colour; and the natural, as far as it concerns their portraiture. Did we see only the Dog’s collar, we should know that it was produced by no common hand, so good is it, and palpably true. But the gasping, and cavernous, and redly-stained mouths, the flaming eyes, the prostrate Dog, and his antagonist standing exultingly over him, the inveterate rage that superior strength inflames but cannot subdue, with the broad and bright relief of the objects, give a wonder-producing vitality to the canvas.” The writer was evidently deeply moved. It is impossible to refrain from smiling at the thought that Leigh Hunt’s, or his brother’s, influence in respect to “The Examiner” was thus represented with regard to pictures by their friend Haydon and Edwin Landseer. The painting is still at Coleorton; it was No. 422, in the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition of 1874. It has not been engraved.

Of one of Landseer’s contributions to the Royal Academy in 1818 Wilkie thus wrote to Haydon: “Geddes has a good head.[27] Etty has a clever piece, and young Landseer’s jackasses are also good.”[28] The picture thus referred to as by Landseer is styled “Portrait of a Donkey.” Wilkie’s memory tricked him about it, but his testimony of admiration is valuable. In these days the British Institution received superior attention from Landseer: and the Academy gatherings—where, however, his début was made—rarely contained his more important productions.

Lady Charles Wellesley has a picture of this year, a thoroughly characteristic example of Landseer’s then current mode, which was mounted for the Hon. H. Pierrepoint, but not sent home, and when inquired for could not be found. It is called “White Horse in a Stable.” In 1842, many years after its disappearance, the work was discovered in a hayloft, where it had been hidden by a dishonest servant, and was sent by Sir Edwin with a letter to Mr. Pierrepoint, stating that the white horse “was the first of that complexion I ever painted,” and that he had not retouched it, thinking “it better when my early style unmingled with that of my old age.” In answer to a question as to price, he mentioned that the sum he was accustomed to receive at the time of painting this picture was Ten Guineas: see the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition Catalogue, 1874, p. 24.

In 1818 a satirical print was published in Elmes’s “Annals of the Fine Arts,” representing Haydon and his pupils drawing from Raphael’s Cartoon of “Elymas struck blind,”[29] which, as Haydon boasted, had by his means been brought to London and placed for the use of artists in the British Institution. This print is a rough etching, and entitled “A Master in the Grand Style & his Pupils;” it represents the interior of the gallery with three enormous canvases placed before the Cartoon, besides a smaller one and a portfolio, at which last a boy is drawing one of the heads on our right of Raphael’s work. Five copyists are busy, two of whom are identified by their portraits and inscriptions on their canvases, as, 1, Bewick, a “romantic” looking youth, who assumes “the grand style” of drawing, pressing his lips together demonstratively after the fashion of poor Haydon himself, while he steps backwards on the rickety platform and draws at arm’s length, sustaining his right elbow with his left hand; his inner mind is evidently divided between his studies and concern for his personal appearance, which is intended to be more than commonly beautiful by means of long curled locks tucked behind his ears, and a falling shirt-collar; his boots are of the smallest. The next artist, 2, is Thomas Christmas, one of Haydon’s pupils, wearing very big boots, his hair and collar being similar to those of his neighbour. The figures working at the smaller canvases on our left do not concern us here; but the portrait of a lad, who, perched on a ladder, measures with a pair of compasses the features of one of the faces in Raphael’s work is important, as it probably represents Edwin (see below) or Charles Landseer, the younger two of Haydon’s pupils, in the figure of a modest-looking, neatly-dressed boy. In the air is Haydon, wearing his broad-brimmed hat and spectacles, busily flying about as a bird and blowing his own trumpet as “Director of the Public Taste.”[30]

The joke is heightened by the publication line of the print stating that it was “Published for the Annals of the Fine Arts, No. 8, by Sherwood, Neely & Jones, Paternoster Row, April 1, 1818.” In this Journal it appeared with a long letter animadverting on Haydon and his pupils. If anybodies’ merits were certain to be recorded in Elmes’s “Annals,” they were those of Haydon and his pupils; but the editor, in order, as he stated, to show his impartiality, did not hesitate to publish the satire on his friends; he was doubtless assured that there was nothing Haydon enjoyed so much as notoriety. “Mr. E. Landseer” is named with his brother in the “Annals,” for 1818, p. 360, as among those who drew in chalk from the Cartoon of “The Beautiful Gate.” According to the “Annals,” ii. 433, the brothers, Thomas and Charles, drew the lictors and the figure of Elymas in the “Elymas struck blind” in 1817.[31]