The first animal painters in England were willing to win money, if not fame, by taking the portraits of favourite race-horses and prize oxen for the country squires, who loved to decorate their walls with pictures of their ancestors, and their studs. The first to make a name in this branch of art was JOHN WOOTTON, a pupil of John Wyck. He became famous in the sporting circles of Newmarket for his likenesses of race-horses, and received large sums for pictures of dogs and horses. Later, he attempted landscapes, chiefly hunting scenes. His works are in country mansions, especially at Blenheim, Longleat, and Dytchley. Wootton died in 1765.
JAMES SEYMOUR (1702—1752) was famous also as a painter of race-horses and hunting-pieces; he is best known by the engravings after his works.
GEORGE STUBBS (1724—1806) was the son of a Liverpool surgeon, from whom he probably inherited his love for anatomy. He worked at painting and conducted anatomic studies with equal zeal throughout his life, and is said to have carried, on one occasion, a dead horse on his back to his dissecting-room. This story is more than doubtful, though Stubbs was a man of great physical strength. He was the first to give the poetry of life and motion to pictures of animals, and to go beyond the mere portrait of a Newmarket favourite or an over-fed ox. The Royal Academy elected him an Associate in 1780, but as he declined to present one of his works, he was never made a full member. Among his works are a Lion killing a Horse, a Tiger lying in his Den, a noble life-size portrait of the famous racing-horse Whistle-jacket, which is at Wentworth Woodhouse, and The Fall of Phaeton. The last picture he repeated four times. He published The Anatomy of the Horse, with etchings from his own dissections.
SAWREY GILPIN (1733—1807) attained considerable success as an animal painter. He was born at Carlisle, and was sent to London as a clerk. Like many others he preferred the studio to the office, and having obtained the favour of the Duke of Cumberland at Newmarket, Gilpin was provided with a set of rooms, and soon became known as a painter of horses. In 1770 he exhibited at Spring Gardens Darius obtaining the Persian Empire by the Neighing of his Horse, and next year Gulliver taking Leave of the Houyhnhnms. Gilpin was elected a R.A. in 1797.
GEORGE MORLAND (1763—1804), though not exclusively an animal painter, is best known in that branch of art. His life's story describes wasted opportunities, reckless extravagance, and misused talents. Brought up with unwise strictness by his father, HENRY ROBERT MORLAND (died 1797), a portrait painter of note, George Morland no sooner escaped from home discipline than he began that course of riotous living which ended in a dishonoured grave, for which he prepared the epitaph:—"Here lies a drunken dog." It is a mistake to suppose that Morland was a self-taught genius, since, although his father objected to his entering the Academy schools, he himself was his teacher, and so assiduously kept the boy at his studies that he learned to hate the name of work.
As early as 1779 young Morland was an honorary exhibitor of sketches at the Academy. At nineteen he had thrown off home ties, and was living a reckless life of debauchery. Like most prodigals who think themselves free, Morland became a slave. His task-master was a picture dealer, who made money by the genius of the youth whose ruin he promoted. Leaving him, the artist went to Margate, and painted miniatures for a time, going thence to France. He would settle to no regular work, although his necessities compelled him at times to labour lest he should starve. The next scene in Morland's life is his sojourn with his friend William Ward, the mezzotint-engraver, where an honourable attachment to Nancy Ward for a time induced him to work. The pictures he painted at this time were suggested by Hogarth's works, and had subjects with which Morland was only too well acquainted. The Idle and Industrious Mechanic, The Idle Laundress and Industrious Cottager, Letitia, or Seduction (a series), were studied from the life. In 1786 Morland married Miss Ward, but there was no improvement in his manner of life. Sometimes he was surrounded by eager purchasers, and using his popularity as a means for greater extravagance. At one time we see him keeping ten or twelve horses, and cheated right and left by profligates who combined horse-racing, betting, and picture dealing. The luckless Morland was the ready victim of these associates. His pictures were copied as he painted them, during his temporary absence from the studio. In 1790 Morland was at his best, The Gipsies being painted two years later. His last days were dark indeed. Loaded with debt, and dreading arrest, he laboured like a slave, seldom leaving his studio, where his pot-companions alternately rioted and acted as his models, and dogs, pigs, and birds shared the disorderly room. In 1799, he was arrested, and lived within the Rules of the Fleet, amid all the debaucheries of that evil place and time. Freed by the Insolvent Act in 1802, the painter, broken in health and ruined in character, was once again arrested for a tavern score, and ended his life in a sponging-house on October 29th, 1804. His wife died of grief three days later, and was interred with her husband in the burial-ground of St. James's Chapel, Hampstead Road.
Morland chiefly painted country scenes, the memories of happier days, and introduced animals, such as pigs and asses, to his works. Produced for existence, and in a fitful, uncertain manner, his pictures were hastily conceived, and painted with little thought or study. He did much to bring the simple beauty of English scenes before the eyes of the public, and to teach Englishmen that they need not go to Italy in search of subjects for their art. Morland loved low company, even in his pictures, and was at home in a ruined stable, with a ragged jackass, and "dirty Brookes," the cobbler. In the National Gallery are: The Inside of a Stable, said to be the White Lion at Paddington, and A Quarry with Peasants, by him. In the South Kensington Museum is an excellent example of his art, called The Reckoning; and in the National Portrait Gallery is his own portrait, painted by himself at an early age.
