[37] Mr. William Russell was Accountant-General of the Court of Chancery, fourth son of Lord William Russell, who, May 6, 1840, was murdered by B. E. Courvoisier, his valet.
[38] It has been said that many years ago the Queen and her Consort made etchings after Landseer’s designs, especially from parts of “Bolton Abbey.” Her Majesty and her Consort made at least a dozen etchings from other works of Landseer’s. (See Mr. Algernon Graves’s Catalogue, p. 41.) Speaking of copies of engravings from pictures by our artist, it may be mentioned that many of foreign origin, including a large proportion of piracies, have appeared; among these are, repeatedly, “Bolton Abbey;” “Favourites” (1835), ponies belonging to the Duke of Cambridge; “Dogs of the Great St. Bernard;” “Dignity and Impudence;” “The Return from Hawking;” “Laying down the Law;” “The Lion Dog of Malta;” “A distinguished Member of the Humane Society,” and “A Jack in Office.”
[39] One of the finest and most pathetic of Mr. Ruskin’s criticisms applies to this picture so happily that we ought to quote it here:—“Take, for instance, one of the most perfect poems or pictures (I use the words as synonymous) which modern times have seen—the ‘Highland Shepherd’s Chief Mourner.’ Here the exquisite execution of the crisp and glossy hair of the dog, the bright sharp touch of the green bough beside it, the clear painting of the wood of the coffin and the folds of the blanket, are language—language clear and expressive in the highest degree. But the close pressure of the dog’s breast against the wood, the convulsive clinging of the paw which has dragged the blanket off the trestle, the total powerlessness of the head laid, close and motionless, upon its folds, the fixed and tearful fall of the eye in its utter hopelessness, the rigidity of repose which marks that there has been no motion nor change in the trance of agony since the last blow was struck on the coffin-lid, the quietness and gloom of the chamber, the spectacles marking the place where the Bible was last closed, indicating how lonely has been the life—how unwatched the departure of him who is now laid solitary in his sleep;—these are all thoughts—thoughts by which the picture is separated at once from hundreds of equal merit, as far as mere painting goes, by which it ranks as a work of high art, and stamps its author not as a neat imitator of the texture of a skin, or the fold of a drapery, but as the man of mind.”—“Modern Painters,” ii., 1851, p. 8.
[40] On this picture Mr. Ruskin delivered an admirable criticism:—“Again, there is capability of representing the essential character, form, and colour of an object, without external texture. On this point much has been said by Reynolds and others; and it is, indeed, perhaps, the most unfailing characteristic of a great manner of painting. Compare a dog of Edwin Landseer with a dog of Paul Veronese. In the first, the outward texture is wrought out with exquisite dexterity of handling, and minute attention to all the accidents of curl and gloss which can give appearance of reality, while the hue and power of the sunshine, and the truth of the shadow on all these forms is necessarily neglected, and the larger relations of the animal as a mass of colour to the sky or ground, or other parts of the picture, utterly lost. This is Realism at the expense of Ideality, it is treatment essentially unimaginative.” In a note to this paper the critic added:—“I do not mean to withdraw the praise I have given, and shall always be willing to give, such pictures as the ‘Highland Shepherd’s Chief Mourner,’ and to all in which the character and inner life of the animals are developed. But all lovers of art must regret to find Mr. Landseer wasting his energies on such inanities as the ‘Shoeing,’ and sacrificing colour, expression, and action to an imitation of a glossy hide,”—“Modern Painters,” ii., 1846, p. 194. There is a grain of fallacy mixed with the noble truth of this—it did not follow that the sacrifices here enumerated were due to love for painting the horse’s glossy hide. The picture was defective as stated here, but not because of the realism it exhibited. The defects were inherent, not due to the imitation. Lacking the nobler qualities, the meaner ones became unworthily and ungracefully prominent. The superb tour de force in the painting of the feathers of “Spaniels of King Charles Breed” (see above) does not appear mean, although it is at least equal in successful imitation to the hide in question.
[41] His name “in the world” was “Neptune;” “in society” his female companion’s name was “Venus.”
[42] Several of the descriptions here given have been adapted from fuller ones made by the author before the pictures, and for previous publication in the Athenæum journal, during a long series of years. They thus partake of the character of studies from nature.