LANDSEER’S DOGS AND THEIR STORIES.
INTRODUCTORY.
A PORTION of Sir Edwin Landseer’s strength and of his weakness lay in the human element which he introduced into his pictures of animals. Each of his pictures tells a story—not only of animal characteristics, but of those characteristics as they approach most closely to men’s qualities, and as they are blended most inseparably with men’s lives.
The dog is the humble friend of man, and man has been called the god of the dog; a sorry god at the best—often a perverse and cruel divinity. In very many of Landseer’s pictures it is impossible to dissolve the relationship. You cannot look at the animal without thinking of the absent master and mistress. The hero or the heroine of the scene is strongly influenced by the man or the woman in the background. It is a little drama of blended human and animal life, as well as the spirited and faithful likeness of an animal which you gaze upon.
A good deal of what is unique in Landseer belongs to this peculiarity, and much of his great popularity is due to it. Men are charmed not only by contemplating the representations of their four-footed favourites, but by having a genius to interpret to them the beautiful and gracious ties which bind together God’s higher and humbler creatures. After all, God put man at the head of His creatures in this world, and perhaps man is not so far wrong as he has sometimes been said to show himself, in seeing in the lower animals a reflection of his own hopes, aims, and destiny.
The selfish and sympathetic instincts are strong in us; and neither grown man nor child will, unless in very exceptional cases, feel either long or deep concern in a kingdom from which he himself is banished. Our familiarity, our fellow-feeling, is to a large extent the measure of our interest in any subject. If we cannot put ourselves in the place of our neighbour, let him have two feet or four, we will not continue long to care for him; and, vice versa, if we have not imagination enough to endow our neighbour with some of our own attributes, so that he may stand, in a way, in our place, our regard for him will be but partial and fleeting.