Sir Edwin Landseer

by Frederic George Stephens

In 1833 Sir Edwin painted the figures of “The Harvest in the Highlands,” of which Callcott produced the landscape. This combination was sent to the Academy in the same year, when an unusual number of Landseer’s pictures were exhibited. For our present purpose, the most important is the inimitable “Jack in Office” (in the South Kensington Museum, Sheepshanks Gift). The faculty of Landseer’s mind which is most popular, because most obvious in its manifestations, was humour, of which few painters possessed a greater share. True humour, however, contains pathos, and sets us thinking even when we smile. This sort of humour is shown in “A Jack in Office.” An itinerant dealer in dog’s-meat has left his barrow in an alley, and under the guardianship of a satiated mongrel, whilst he transacts business, probably across the counter of a tavern. The tight-skinned custodian has seated himself on the barrow, as on a throne, where he receives the courtier-like attentions of his hungry and less fortunate fellow-creatures. One wretched beast exhibits his lean carcase, pleading for pity; another, seated on his tail, begs in formâ pauperis, with dropped paws, and adulatory whine; a third appeals to the guardian’s gallantry and devotion to her sex: but in vain; he sits in calmness and pride; a half-twinkle is in his eye, as though he saw the motives of all, and scorned the meaner supplicants. Also, he seems experienced in the canine world, for under his half-closed and disdainful eyelids is a sharp look at the self-degrading beggar: he thus watches because he feels this beast to be devoid of principle, a rascal who might, if the eye should only wink, dash upon the spoil and fly. A coup d’état of this kind must, let it be noted, be successful; and, by dogs of bolder spirits than these, could be attempted. One must, in that case, sacrifice himself for the common good; there is none to do so. The meagre beast in front is a pointer, and all about him is pitiable; he must have lost his character ere he sunk so low as this; his drivelling mouth, sunk chaps, nervous and imploring eyes, shaking limbs and quivering tail indicate a born gentleman driven to implore charity, with signs of utter famishing as the utmost appeal. A contrast is seen in the person of a dark puppy, who, having devoured his “ha-porth,” nervously gnaws the skewer which held it, and quivers with unsatisfied greed. One discerns that the guardian is a thorough dog of business, because he pays not the slightest attention to this little customer, who, having legally acquired his portion, is not under surveillance. Besides, if he did anything wrong, has he not a responsible master? There is such a hateful disdain about the “Jack in Office,” that the spectator, heedless of morality, and reckless of the rights of property, hopes one of the dogs will sacrifice himself for the general luck, and engage the watcher in combat, while the others fall to. There are volumes of character in this picture, which are sustained even by the placing of a dog in the distance, looking on, as if in hopes to profit by the chances of a mêlée.

“The naughty Boy,” exhibited at the British Institution in 1834 as “A naughty Child,” and well known by means of Finden’s engraving, was a portrait of a sulky little urchin whom Landseer essayed to paint on account of the determination his features exhibited and the sturdiness of his handsome face and frame. The boy being in a rebellious frame of mind, was brought straight from his school to the workshop of the painter; sulky at first, he became outrageous when he saw his enemy seated with a kindly laugh on his face; pouting, the boy frowned and hugged himself with his own arms, blew bubbles between his compressed lips, scowled, and obstinately turned his knees in. Pending the preliminaries of the picture, the irate young gentleman was left standing alone in the centre of the room. Wrath overcame him at seeing resistance would be useless; with dreadful clangour, he flung down his slate like the shield of a wounded Homeric hero and, skulking into the corner, savagely cried, “I won’t be painted!” and was painted for the admonition of all “naughty” boys, so that “his knit and furrowed forehead” gathers itself under a fine head of flaxen hair, twisted into Gorgonian curls, and quivering with determination and wrath. It is right to notice how the self-devouring passion of the child makes him shrink into the smallest possible space, and turn his toes in, huddling his feet together, while his arms are pressed against his sides, and his shoulders raised, as though every power of body and mind concentrated itself. The artist introduced accessories from an infants’ school, including a book lying on a form, &c.

CHAPTER V.
A.D. 1834 TO A.D. 1842.

SUSPENSE—HIGHLAND SHEPHERD DOG—BOLTON ABBEY—DROVER’S DEPARTURE—SHEPHERD’S CHIEF MOURNER—DIGNITY AND IMPUDENCE—OTTERS AND SALMON—THE SANCTUARY.

In 1834 many place the attainment of Sir Edwin Landseer’s highest level in art; “Suspense” then appeared at the Academy, with “A Highland Shepherd Dog rescuing Sheep from a Snowdrift,” “A Scene of the olden Time at Bolton Abbey,” and other works. Of these, to our minds, “Suspense” is by far the best picture, and aptest illustration of genius; on this, if we chose, his honour should rest. “In some cases,” says Mr. Redgrave, with reference to it, “the invention of the artist is exerted rather to exercise and call forth the imagination of the spectator than to display his own.” “Suspense” is an excellent example of the pictures of this class. A noble bloodhound is watching at a closed door, shut out, one may imagine, from the wounded knight, his master. There are the steel gloves removed from the now powerless limbs—the torn eagle-plume tells of the deadly strife, and the continuous track on the floor shows how his life-blood flowed away drop by drop as he was borne within. Who does not watch with the faithful hound in deep “suspense” for some token that his master yet lives? Others, again, can read the picture far differently: these may imagine that the dog has tracked the author of some act of violence or deed of blood; the plume, torn from the casque of the struggling man, lies on the floor sprinkled with the blood shed in the struggle ere the victim was borne within the now closed portal; we recognize the scuffle of the moment, his hand clutching the door-post with fearful energy to prevent the closing, the stifled cries, the hopelessness of resistance. Yet there, like a watchful sentinel, waiting in silence, the animal crouches, whose instinct teaches him to follow untiringly the object of his search; the spectator himself waits in anxious eagerness for the reopening of the door, anticipates the spring of the animal and the renewed struggle that will ensue. In the course of Mr. Ruskin’s magnificent criticism on Tintoret, Titian, Velazquez, Veronese, and Landseer, as dog-painters, are remarks on the last-named artist which, however true they are in respect to Landseer’s “drawing-room” pictures, award but scanty justice to the masculine author of “Suspense” and its class.—See “Modern Painters,” 1860, v. pp. 260-3.

“The Highland Shepherd Dog rescuing a Sheep from a Snow-drift” tells its own tale, and needs no explanation from us. The sheep is almost smothered, its struggles avail little, but the sagacious “collie” aids it by clearing away the snow.