Sir Edwin Landseer

by Frederic George Stephens

CHAPTER VIII.
A.D. 1862 TO A.D. 1873.

MAN PROPOSES, GOD DISPOSES—THE CONNOISSEURS—THE SWANNERY INVADED—CLOSING YEARS—DEATH OF LANDSEER.

The years 1862 and 1863 were, so far as the Exhibitions were concerned, significantly void of the fruits of Sir Edwin’s art. But 1864 brought good news and good work again; and we all rejoiced over the vigour which was apparent in “Man proposes, God disposes,” an Arctic incident suggested by the finding of the relics of Sir John Franklin. The scene is a piece of rugged ice, the coast-line of that remote land, broken by inlets of dark water. Over all is the greenish light of an Arctic noon; a purple veil of mist is drawn aside, as if a secret were displayed, and in order that we might see what had become of our long-lost countrymen. The veil gone, the rose tints of sunlight fall on the nearest and the highest points of rock-like ice, while light itself penetrates the sea-green blocks, and lurid shadows appear among the masses that strew the shore. Right across the front lies the mast of a boat, covered with brine as hard as a stone, and with a hoary fringe of icicles. A rag of tarpaulin—that may at one time have been the roof of a hut formed amongst the angular blocks—lies over this spar. Beneath this spar are a few planks, bleached in the long frost; and from below them peer a few bones—the rib bones of a man; above these lies a coat of navy blue. A huge white bear, her head on high, holds between cruel jaws a whitened bone. At the other side of the picture, and at the back of the so-called hut, sprawls the formless bulk of a larger bear, whose flattened head is laid along the ice, dragging between its jaws and from beneath the spar the ragged length of a piece of bunting, part of a Union Jack. This work now belongs to Mr. E. V. Coleman. With this painful picture we received that charming piece of manual dexterity, and keenest feeling for animal character, “A Piper and a Pair of Nutcrackers,” a bullfinch perched on a bough, just above the seat of a pair of squirrels. It is now in the possession of Mr. C. Booth.

At the British Institution for this year (1864) we had “Well-bred Sitters, that never say they are bored,” a large painting of dogs, produced with all Sir Edwin’s dexterity although, it may be, not showing all his soundness of drawing, or that finish in which, of yore, he delighted. An enormous black dog sits, as if before an artist, a model of dignity and self-possession; in his mouth is a badger-hair brush, such as painters style a “softener.” By his side a fawn-coloured dog is posed with great elegance. In the foreground are several dead doves, a pheasant, a purple velvet cigar-case, the colour of which serves as a chromatic echo to that of the pheasant’s neck. This was a vigorous picture, showing all we were accustomed to find in Sir Edwin’s later works.

The most interesting, if not the best, picture of 1865 by Landseer was his own portrait, styled “The Connoisseurs,” a humorous piece, comprising portraits of two dogs, who look appreciatively over his shoulder while he makes a drawing. “The flesh painting is too white as well as pinky to be true to nature, opaque and rather coarse, but the dogs who look over his shoulder at the sketch he is making, supply the title to the picture. Canine meditation and the result on a dog’s face of critical habits were never even thought of before, much less ever painted, as they are here. The dog on our right will not, it seems, give a hasty verdict in favour of his master’s work, that on our left will, like other critics, follow his neighbour. If anything could justify a man’s wish to be a dog it would be that Sir Edwin might paint him. What a gentle dog is he on our right!” “Déjeûner à la Fourchette,” a donkey feeding, a boy near, was not a fortunate picture. “Adversity” and “Prosperity” had contrasted subjects in the life of a horse. In the latter we had a superbly elegant bay horse; his hide has an inner glow such as would delight Titian to paint it; he sniffs the air gladly and looks from on high far off; his limbs are perfectly formed, and his body is a model for a Greek sculptor, and although too small in proportion for the body, his head is elegant. By his side is a dandy groom, the least satisfactory part of the picture. “Adversity” gives the other side of the same medal. A cab-horse in a low inn-yard sniffs wearily a mass of corn that is locked up; the shabby collar of servitude is about his neck, and, worse than all, has rubbed to bleeding some of that golden bay skin, which, a little too perfectly it may be, remains to the poor beast of all his beauty, pride, and delight in life; he sniffs in vain, almost afraid to go too near the locked food, and feebly, apologetically, paws the stones with worn hoofs. The artist never told a tale better than by these pictures, and probably never painted a horse’s hide better than that of the youthful model. These works were sold with Mr. Albert Grant’s pictures, April 28, 1877; the former for £1480, the latter for £1501.

The next year, 1866, produced the unfortunate “Lady Godiva’s Prayer;” the finely painted white “Mare and Foal” lying on the grass by the side of an Indian tent; “Odds and Ends, a Trophy for a Hall,” a collection of bucks heads, hunting weapons, &c., grouped with three living dogs, an unlucky grouping. There was likewise a large cartoon, recalling the triptych we have described, and showing a stag rushing at full speed, and followed hard by a great hound, both full of action. In this year Sir Edwin made his first appearance as a sculptor with the vigorous “Stag at Bay,” the fruit of practice of which the then long-delayed Lions for Trafalgar Square were expected to have the benefit. “Wild Cattle at Chillingham Park, Northumberland,” one of the pictures of 1867, gave a fine painting of a magnificent bull, companied by a cow and a calf, standing among heather and rocks. This and a companion picture, “Deer in Chillingham Park,” were destined for a chamber at Chillingham Castle, the seat of the Earl of Tankerville.

In January of this year the Lions were placed in Trafalgar Square: they had been commissioned from Sir Edwin Landseer so long before as 1859. They have monumental poses, with by no means wholly fortunate realistic execution. Their attitudes are undeniably grand, the surface treatment of each figure is excellent; but the incongruity of the two characteristics is injurious to examples of architectonic art. This may be admitted by those who have recognized in the statues from the pediments of the Parthenon, similar characteristics combined in works which, like the Lions, were intended for architectonic service.

The pictures of 1868 do not call for any particular mention. On the other hand, there was one in the Academy in 1869 which recalled to our minds all the artist’s power. This was entitled “The Swannery invaded by Sea-Eagles,” and came a great deal nearer to Snyders’s manner than any Landseer had produced for many years; indeed, since youth had ceased with him he rarely worked with so much solidity, firmness, and with such skill as in that which we think his last noble picture. It shows a group of swans’ nests near the mouth of a mountain river. “From the hills that overlook the ocean, the fierce brown birds have descended on the white brood, and attacked them with beaks and claws. One has a big wader by the throat, and just below the bill that vainly bites his thigh, while with a yellow dreadful claw he tears the downy breast of the victim, so that the red blood streams over it, dashing the plumage of snow to the black foot-webs themselves, which vainly quiver on the ground. Yet the swan fights well, and delivers smashing blows with his wings at his tyrant. The effect of this mode of defiance is seen on the body of another eagle, which, with the ravenous yelp of his kind, returns to the attack on a second swan, and will certainly get the best of it. Already dead between her still fighting fellows, a third swan lies prone, with a grey cygnet beside her. In the air above the nest, other swans flutter away, but in vain, for other eagles are there to destroy the last of those who built near the robbers. The design of the picture may be thus explained, but it would be hard to illustrate the painting of the plumage, or the largeness of the style which pervades this, one of the best painted of Sir Edwin’s works. It belongs to Lord Northampton.

With this noble painting Sir Edwin’s artistic biography, his auto-biography, may well be closed. Succeeding works added nothing to our knowledge of his skill, nor were they calculated to illustrate his genius more fortunately than those which have been enumerated and described.