Sir Edwin Landseer

by Frederic George Stephens

The pictures “Peace” and “War,” both of 1846, now in the National Gallery, require only the briefest mention. The scene of the former is the summit of a high chalk cliff looking over Dover harbour—not too faithfully painted, by the way—with the calm blue sea, a little defective in clearness of colour, the whole lying in sunlight, as Sir Edwin was accustomed to paint that effect. A cannon has been tumbled from its place, and is here topsy-turvy on the grass; in its harmless muzzle a pretty lamb is grazing; other sheep and a few goats are browsing near; close by are three bright-faced, heedless children, the shepherds of the flock, one of whom has placed grass in the cannon’s mouth for the lamb. These elements complete the design, of which the idea is a little too melodramatic to be acceptable to critics, but it is most welcome to less fastidious judges. “War” is simpler still, and a design of less challengeable quality; there has been a battle, a cottage is in ruins, lurid smoke dashes the still sunny walls with shadows, the torn roses of the porch shine in the desolation, a dying horse and his dead rider, a dragoon in steel, and sword in hand, lie near the door; a dead horse and a second dead man lie close to the others.

“The Stag at Bay,” belonging to the Marquis of Breadalbane, which appeared in the same year, had a more energetic design than that of “War;” it is one of the strongest of Sir Edwin’s pictures, and well known by Mr. T. Landseer’s engraving. “The Drive,” produced in 1847, was a hunting-piece, representing the shooting of deer in a pass of Glenorchy Forest; it is the property of the Queen, and was engraved by Mr. T. Landseer.

At the same exhibition some readers remember the large but not very fortunate “Portrait of Mr. Van Amburgh, as he appeared with his animals at the London theatres.” Many years had passed since Sir Edwin had painted a “lion picture,” and his reputation was uninjured in that respect, although there were not lacking grumblers who averred that his earlier works far surpassed in artistic qualities the more attractive, more popular and, it must be admitted, far more poetical productions of his middle life. At this date our artist had hit the chords in popular feeling to which it would best suit him to appeal, and he did so vigorously and constantly; the chords were two—that of sad pathos and that of gentle, semi-human satire.

The pictures of 1848, to which we now turn, being “A random Shot” and “Alexander and Diogenes,” were apt illustrations of the concurrent powers of Landseer’s mind at the best. Technically speaking, he had lost prodigiously by this period; his works were not half so solid as when his spurs were won, but in the higher intellectual and imaginative qualities they now far surpassed their forerunners, notwithstanding occasional dashes of melodramatic taste. “Van Amburgh,” was injurious to the reputation of the painter. The works of the next year—1848—set this higher than ever.

In 1848 we were presented with “A random Shot,” one of the most pathetic and epical of Landseer’s works. It is a snow-piece, the scene high on the mountain, whose more distant ridges rise above the mist. The snow lies smooth; and for miles, so far as the eye can penetrate the vapour, there is nothing but snow, which covers, but does not hide, the shapes of the hill-tops. A few foot-prints 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 mother’s 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.

This year was one of unusual good fortune for Sir Edwin’s admirers; two of his best pictures were exhibited, besides the beautiful “Old Cover Hack,” a horse standing with an air of being at home, at the door of a stable.

“Alexander and Diogenes,” another of the pictures of 1848, is well known; the big white bulldog Alexander pays a visit to the philosopher in his tub, personified by a dingy, meditative little beast in inferior condition of health and of poor belongings. He appears to be a farrier’s tyke, to judge by the box of nails, with its thumb-hole, and the hammer, which lie before the tub; and he is undoubtedly of abstemious habits, if we may judge by the “rope” of onions and the herbs suspended at the side of his place of shelter, and the potatoes which lie on the flag-stones. The big white bully, with his “military” collar, stands before the tub, and, regarding its cynical occupant askant, knits his brows—not a dog’s action, by-the-bye—at once inquiringly and with hauteur. The courtiers are commonplace; two are whining, with hypocritical mouths turned down, the one has upcast eyes, the other is self-absorbed in meditation, and with his eyes dreamily half-closed, occupies part of the background. A greyhound, of the gentler sex, whose collar is decorated with a hawk’s bell, and is herself a courtier, is courted by the sneaking little spaniel with the set smile on his lips, and adulatory eyes as lustrous as globes of glass. A contumelious spaniel of another breed is near, and, with nose upturned and scornful, looks at the more scornful and not less insincere cynic, who, with greater pride, tramples on the pride of Alexander. This year (1848) produced the “Sketch of my Father,” that capital portrait of John Landseer to which we have already alluded. In the same year appeared a series of etchings by C. G. Lewis, styled “The Mothers, by Edwin Landseer,” from drawings made in 1837. This publication was the last in which our artist had direct concern.

In 1848 Landseer received from the “Commissioners on the Fine Arts” a charge to paint in oil three subjects connected with the chase, for compartments of the Peers’ Refreshment Room in the Houses of Parliament; the absurdly inadequate price was not to be more than 500l. each. It is evident that Landseer accepted these tasks patriotically rather than in hope of profit. However, the matter came to nothing, for after a sharp debate, rather a skirmish than a fight, when this great sum of 1500l. was proposed as the national payment to a great artist for three important pictures, the House of Commons, piqued at the conduct of the scheme for decorating the Palace of Westminster, struck the sum from the estimates, and put an end to the affair; more to the artist’s profit than ours.

The pictures of 1849, although comprising “The Free Church” and “The Evening Scene in the Highlands,”