[2]
E. Spilsbury delt. T. Landseer sculpt.
Leopard after Reydinger.
Every artist does best, that which he is best qualified and best disposed to do. In completing the number of plates that has been found necessary for the Work, Mr. Edwin Landseer has chosen to proceed toward the same purpose, upon a different principle. He has gone, without any introductory medium, directly to the living animals, and has exhibited the savage manners and habits of these quadrupeds, according to his own ideas and observations.
On the distinction between Character and Expression, we shall now deliver our opinion. By the Character of an animal, we mean those permanencies of his look and features which he always offers to view when in a placid, or unimpassioned state: by his Expression, the variations of muscular action superinduced on character, to which he is liable, as the storms of passion sweep by, and his mind becomes agitated by external circumstances acting on the ardours of his instinct.
The former, seems to hold its court in the solid and massy parts: the latter, agitates, ofttimes rebelliously, the nerves and muscles. Character is ever present, both in the animal countenance, and in the “human face divine.” The most violent expression does not proscribe, or obliterate, character. Individuality consists of it, as far as concerns external appearance; and it forms the system of vowels of the language of Nature, without which no Expression could be.
Whoever regards the faces of a flock of Sheep, will see in them an infinite variety of Character, with very little Expression, and that little without diversity: and if we descend a step lower in the scale of being, and contemplate the finny tribe, where Character is not wanting, we find no Expression at all. Even Trees and inanimate objects, possess Character. We recollect a poetical friend of ours, now in Italy, saying that every tree and every rock had a face—but of this we are not so certain; though very certain, that there is enough of Character in rocks and trees, to make a poet think so.
Character and Expression, in the carnivorous class of animals, to which we here solicit attention, are always co-existent—their proportions varying with the existing occasions—in pictorial exhibitions of such subjects.
[No. II.]
There is much Character, and little Expression, in the reposing Leopard with his sheathed claws, which is shewn in the present engraving, copied by Mr. Spilsbury from Ridinger, and corrected from Nature. Ridinger was an artist of great power, who studied wild animals in their sequestered haunts, as is shewn in his grand forest back-grounds; and who, generally speaking, left little or no room for others to improve, except on some few of his inferior works. The present is an interesting and beautiful animal, yet there is a latent capability of mischief characterised in his countenance, and we might ask, in the language of Job, “Who shall dare to rouse him up?”