Chapter 10

If you will study every detail of this reproduction, finding all the objects--the apple, the rusty bolts--noting how the full risen moon has formed a natural nimbus for the sacred head, and then re-read what Ruskin has said, you will discover the rarest truths in Holman Hunt's picture. The several pictures which he painted, but which cannot now be found are: "Hark!" which was first exhibited in the Royal Academy; "Scene from Woodstock," "The Eve of St. Agnes," "Jerusalem by Moonlight," "The King of Hearts," "Moonlight at Salerno," "Interior of the Mosque of Omar," "The Pathless Water," "Winter," "Afternoon," "Sussex Downs," "Penzance," "The Archipelago," "Will-o'-the-Wisp," "Ivybridge," "The Foal of an Ass," "Road over the Downs," "The Haunt of the Gazelle," "'Oh, Pearl,' Quoth I," "Miss Flamborough," "The School-girl's Hymn." Portraits: Mr. Martineau; Mr. J. B. Brice. Small sketch of the "Scapegoat," "Sunset on the Sea," "Morning Prayer," "Bianca," "Past and Present," and "Dead Mallard."

Should you ever find one of these pictures bearing the initials P. R. B. or those of Holman Hunt, you will have made an interesting discovery and should make it known to others.

XXIV

GEORGE INNESS

_American_ 1825-1897 _Pupil of Regis Gignoux_

George Inness was destined to keep a grocery store as his father had kept one before him, and had grown rich in it. When George was a young man he was given a grocery store in Newark, New Jersey, a very small store indeed, and it is not surprising that the young man preferred art to butter and eggs. The Inness family had just moved from Newburg, probably the elder Innes seeking in Newark a good location for his son's beginning.

The first art-work Inness did was engraving; as he had been apprenticed to that business, but afterward he studied with Gignoux, a pupil of Delaroche.

At that time there was what is known as the Hudson River School. Its ideas were set and formal, and not very inspiring, aside from the subjects treated. Church was then a young man like Inness, and he was studying in the Hudson River School, but the young grocer struck out a line for himself.

He was forty years old before he got to Paris, but once there, he turned to the men at Barbizon--Rousseau, Millet, Corot, and the rest--for inspiration, and began to do beautiful things indeed. Rousseau became his friend, and the art of Inness grew large and rich through such influences.

Inness had inherited much religious feeling from his Scotch ancestors, and all his work was conscientious, very carefully done.

When Inness returned from Paris he was not yet well known. He went to Montclair, New Jersey, to live and it was there that he did his best work. Finally, after he was fifty years old, he became known as a truly splendid painter. He loved best to paint quiet scenes of morning, evening sunset, and the like. His pictures began to gain value, and one that he had sold for three hundred dollars jumped in price to ten thousand and more. His work is not equally good, because his moods greatly influenced him.

PLATE--BERKSHIRE HILLS

This picture in the George A. Hearn collection is full of the sense of restfulness that the works of this artist always convey. The trees are as motionless as the distant hills, and if the oxen are moving at all it is but slowly.

Some other Inness paintings are the "Georgia Pines," "Sunset on the Passaic," "The Wood Gatherers" and "After a Summer Shower."

XXV

SIR EDWIN HENRY LANDSEER

_English School_ 1802-1873 _Pupil of his father, John Landseer_

It is pleasant to speak of one artist whose good work began in the companionship of his father; the case of Edwin Landseer is most unusual.

His father was a skilful engraver who loved art, and encouraged the cultivation of it in his son, as other fathers of painters encouraged them to become priests or haberdashers or bakers, as the case might be. Little Landseer's beginning has been described by his father as he and a friend stood looking upon one of the scenes of his childhood:

"These two fields were Edwin's first studio. Many a time have I lifted him over this very stile. I then lived in Foley Street, and nearly all the way between Marylebone and Hampstead was open fields. It was a favourite walk with my boys; and one day when I had accompanied them, Edwin stopped by this stile to admire some sheep and cows which were quietly grazing. At his request I lifted him over, and finding a scrap of paper and a pencil in my pocket, I made him sketch the cow. He was very young indeed, then--not more than six or seven years old.

"After this we came on several occasions, and as he grew older this was one of his favourite spots for sketching. He would start off alone, or with John (Thomas?) or Charles, and remain till I fetched him in the afternoon. I would then criticise his work, and make him correct defects before we left the spot. Sometimes he would sketch in one field, sometimes in the other, but generally in the one beyond the old oak we see there, as it was more pleasant and sunny."

All the Landseer men were gifted, and the mother was the beautiful woman whom Reynolds painted as a gleaner, carrying a bundle of wheat upon her head.

There were seven little Landseers, the oldest of them being Thomas, the famous engraver, whose reproduction of his brother's works will preserve them to us always, even after the originals are gone. The first of Edwin's drawings which seemed to his family worthy of publishing was a great St. Bernard dog, such a wonderful performance for a little fellow of thirteen that Thomas engraved it and distributed it all over England. Little Edwin had seen this beautiful dog one day in the streets of London in a servant's charge, and he was so delighted with its beauty, that he followed the two home and asked the dog's owner if he might sketch him. The St. Bernard was six feet four inches long "and at the middle of his back, stood two feet seven inches in height." A great critic said that this drawing was one of the very finest that any master of art had ever made, though it was done by a little child of thirteen years and it is also said that Landseer himself never did anything better than that little-boy work. A live dog who was let into the room with it--as critic, maybe--proved to be the most flattering of such, because he bristled instantly for a fight.

While the boy was still thirteen--which seems to have been a magic and not a tragic number to him--he exhibited pictures in the Royal Academy. These were a mule, and a dog with a puppy. In the stories of "Famous Artists" we are told that he was a fine, manly little chap with light curly hair and very well behaved. When he became a student of the Academy the keeper, Fuseli, used to look about among the students and cry: "Where is my little dog boy?" if Landseer was not in his place. The little chap's favourite dog was his own Brutus, which he painted lying at full length; and though the picture was small, it sold for seventy guineas. This means an earning capacity indeed, for a small boy.

When he was but seven years old he had made pictures of lions and tigers, each with a different expression from the other and each with a character of its own. Critics spoke specially of the tiger's whiskers as "admirable in the rendering of foreshortened curves." Tigers' whiskers were thought to be most difficult things to make, but in Landseer's pictures, they were as "natural as life." The great success of the artist's animal pictures was that he made them seem to have human intelligence, and it was also said that if one only saw the dog's collar, as Landseer painted it, he would know it to be the work of a great artist, that a great dog-picture must be attached to it.

At least one of his pictures had a remarkable history. He had been commissioned by the Hon. H. Pierrpont to paint a "white horse in a stable." After the painting was ready for delivery it disappeared, and for twenty-four years it could not be found. At last it was discovered in a hay-loft! It had been stolen by a servant and hidden there. In spite of the long years that had passed, Landseer sent it at once to the man for whom it had been made, with the message that he had not retouched it nor changed it in the least, "because," said he, "I thought it better not to mingle the style of my youth with that of my old age."

One of Landseer's early advisers had told him he must dissect animals to get the proper effects in painting them, as it was necessary for him to understand their construction. So, one time, when a famous old lion died in the Exeter Exchange menagerie Landseer got its body and dissected it, and immediately afterward he painted three great lion pictures: "The Lion Disturbed at His Repast," "A Lion Enjoying His Repast," and "A Prowling Lion."

Sir Walter Scott became so enchanted with Landseer's pictures that the great novelist came to London to take the young artist to his home at Abbotsford. "His dogs are the most magnificent things I ever saw," said Scott, "leaping and bounding and grinning all over the canvas."

Landseer lived in the centre of London till he was more than thirty years old, and then, looking for more quiet and space he bought a very small house and garden at No. 1, St. John's Wood. There was not much room in the house but it had a stable attached which made a fine studio, and there Landseer lived with a sister of his, for nearly fifty years. When he first wished to rent the house, the landlord asked him a hundred pounds premium which Landseer felt that he could not pay and he was about to give it up, when a friend declared that if the matter of money was all that prevented him, he was to rent it immediately, and he could repay him as he chose. Landseer then took the house, his friend paying down the premium, and Landseer returned the money twenty-pounds at a time, till all the debt was paid.

Landseer made this a famous and hospitable house, and it is said that more great people gathered under his roof than had ever gathered about any other artist with the exception of Sir Joshua Reynolds. That was the house in which Landseer's loving old father spent his last days and finally died. A story is told of the witty D'Orsay, who would call out at the door, when he went to visit the artist: "Landseer, keep de dogs off me, I want to come in and some of dem will bite me--and dat fellow in de corner is growling furiously."

On one of his several visits to Abbotsford, where he went many times after his first invitation, to enjoy Scott's delightful hospitality, he painted a famous dog of Sir Walter's called Maida, which died six weeks afterward.

There are several such stories about dogs who died rather tragically and were also painted by Landseer. The two King Charles spaniels which he painted both died soon after sitting to the great painter. They had been pets of Mr. Vernon, who commissioned the painting, and the white Blenheim spaniel fell from a table and was killed, while the King Charles fell through the railings of a staircase and was picked up dead. The great bloodhound, Countess, belonging to Mr. Bell who gave her picture to the Academy, was watching for her master's return one dark night and when she heard the wheels of his carriage, then his voice, she leaped from the balcony, but missed her footing and fell nearly dead at Mr. Bell's feet. That gentleman loved the dog so much that he was distracted, and taking her into his gig, knowing that she must die, he raced in to London again that same night, and rousing Sir Edwin, begged him to paint the dog before it was too late. Then and there was the sketch of the dying animal made.

Sir Edwin Landseer was the most versatile and entertaining of artists. He was a wit, and could also perform all sorts of sleight of hand tricks, besides being so quick with his pencil that his doings seemed miraculous. One evening, during a conversation with many friends, someone declared that in point of time Sir Edwin could do a record-sketch. One young woman spoke up and said: "There is one thing that even he cannot do--he cannot make two different pictures at the same time."

"Think not?" cried Sir Edwin. "Let us see!" Gaily taking two pencils, he rapidly drew a stag's head with one hand and a horse's head with the other.

Landseer became the guest of royalty, a favourite of Queen Victoria, whose dog Dash was one of the many famous dogs painted by him. Dash was the favourite spaniel of the Duchess of Kent, Victoria's mother; and the Queen's biographer says that she too loved him very much. On Coronation Day she had been away from him longer than usual, and when the great state coach rolled up to the palace steps she could hear Dash barking for her in the hall. "Oh," she exclaimed, "there's Dash," and throwing aside the ball and sceptre which she carried, she hurried to change her fine robes, in order to wash the dog. This is a very homelike and picturesque story, but it is possibly not true. Doubtless the little Queen heard the dog bark--and was glad to see him.

At Windsor Landseer painted another royal dog, Islay, the pet terrier of Victoria; also Dandie Dinmont, belonging to the Princess Alice; then Eos, who was Prince Albert's--King Edward's--dog. All the last years of Sir Edwin Landseer' life, the royal family were his devoted and comforting friends. The painter suffered much and during his visits to Balmoral he wrote to his sister how the Queen used to go several times a day to his room, to look after his comfort and to inquire about his condition. He wrote:

"The Queen kindly commands me to get well here. She has to-day been twice to my room to show additions recently added to her already rich collection of photographs. Why, I know not, but since I have been in the High lands I have for the first time felt wretchedly weak, without appetite. The easterly winds, and now again the unceasing cold rain, may possibly account for my condition, but I can't get out. Drawing tires me; however, I have done a little better to-day. The doctor residing in the castle has taken me in hand, and gives me leave to dine to-day with the Queen and the rest of the royal family.... Flogging would be mild compared with my sufferings. No sleep, fearful cramp at night, accompanied by a feeling of faintness and distressful feebleness."

When he was well, he was gay and cheerful; and Dickens, Thackeray, and many other noted men were his friends. We are told that above all things. Sir Edwin was a great mimic and that one night at dinner he threw everybody into fits of laughter by imitating his friend the sculptor Sir Francis Chantry. It was at the sculptor's table, where a large party was assembled. Chantry called Sir Edwin's attention, when the cloth was removed, to the reflection of light in the highly polished table.

"Come here and sit in my place," said Chantry, "and see the perspective you can get." Then he went and stood by the fire, while Landseer sat in his place. Seated then in Chantry's chair, Landseer called out in perfect imitation of his host: "Come, young man, you think yourself ornamental; now make yourself useful, and ring the bell." Chantry did so, and when the butler came in he was confused and amazed to hear his master's voice from where Landseer sat in Chantry's place at the table. The voice of his master from the head of the table ordered claret, while his master really stood before the fire with his hands under his coat-tails.

We are told that Landseer stood his pictures on their heads, or upon one corner or looked at them from between his legs, any way, every way, to get a complete view of them from all quarters. He went to bed very late and got up very late, but in the mornings, while lying in bed he mostly thought out the subjects of his pictures.

He was not much of a sportsman, preferring to paint animals rather than to kill them, and one day when hunting, he saw a fine stag before him. Instead of firing at it, he thrust his gun into a gillie's hands, crying: "Hold that! hold that!" and whipping out his pencil and pad he began to sketch the stag. Whereupon the gillies were disgusted that he should miss so fine a shot, and they said something to each other in Gaelic, which Sir Edwin must have understood, for he became very angry.

"It was a pity," wrote one who knew all his qualities, "that Landseer, who might have done so much for the good of the animal kind, never wrote on the subject of their treatment. He had a strong feeling against the way some dogs are tied up, only allowed their freedom now and then. He used to say a man would fare better tied up than a dog, because the former can take his coat off, but a dog lives in his forever. He declared a tied-up dog, without daily exercise, goes mad, or dies, in three years."

He had a wonderful power over dogs, and he told one lady it was because he had "peeped into their hearts." A great mastiff rushed delightedly upon him one day and someone remarked how the dog loved him. "I never saw the dog before in my life," the artist said.

While teaching some horses tricks for Astley's, he showed his friends some sugar in his hand and said: "Here is my whip." His studio was full of pets, and one dog used as a model used to bring the master's hat and lay it at his feet when he got tired of posing.

This charming man suffered a great deal before his death, and had dreadful fits of depression. During one of these he wrote: "I have got trouble enough; ten or twelve pictures about which I am tortured, and a large national monument to complete." That monument was the one in Trafalgar Square, for which he designed the lions at the base. "If I am bothered about anything and everything, no matter what, I know my head will not stand it much longer." Later he wrote: "My health (or rather condition), is a mystery beyond human intelligence. I sleep seven hours, and awake tired and jaded, and do not rally till after luncheon. J. L. came down yesterday and did her best to cheer me... I return to my own home in spite of kind invitations from Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone to meet Princess Louise at breakfast." Of the many anecdotes told of this great man, his introduction to the King of Portugal furnishes the most amusing. "I am delighted to make your acquaintance," the King said, "I am so fond of beasts."

Before he died he had made a large fortune from his work, and during his illness he was tended most lovingly by his friends and sister. One day, walking in his garden, much depressed, he said sadly: "I shall never see the green leaves again," but he did live through other seasons. He wished to die in his studio, and at one time when he was much distracted the Queen wrote him not to fear, but to trust those who were doing all they could for him, that her confidence in his physicians and nurses was complete. At last with brother, sister, friends and fortune about him the great animal painter died, and on October 11, 1873, and was buried with great honours in St. Paul's Cathedral.

PLATE--THE OLD SHEPHERD'S CHIEF MOURNER

Of all the dogs Landseer loved to paint, the sheep collie has the most character; and here he shows us one expressing in every line of his face and form the most profound grief. The Glengarry bonnet on the floor beside the shepherd's staff, the spectacles lying on the Bible, the ram's horn, the vacant chair, the black and white shawl known as a "Shepherd's plaid"--all these things have failed to comfort this humble follower. We can imagine him, not bounding ahead with a joyous bark, but walking staidly behind the coffin when it is borne away and laying himself down upon his master's grave, perhaps to die of starvation, as some of his kind have been known to do. The painting is one of the Sheepshanks Collection in the South Kensington Museum.

Among Landseer's other famous dog pictures are "Low Life and High Life," "Dignity and Impudence" and "The Sleeping Bloodhound," all in the National Gallery.

XXVI

CLAUDE LORRAIN (GELLEE)

_Classical French School_ 1600-1689 _Pupil of Godfrey Wals_

Of all the contrasts between the early and later lives of great artists, Claude Lorrain gives us the most complete.

He was born to make pastry. His family may have been all pastry cooks, because people of Lorrain were famous for that work; anyway as a little chap he was apprenticed to one. His parents were poor, lived in the Duchy of Lorrain and from that political division the Artist was named.

The town in which he was born was Chamagne, and his real name was Gellée. As a pastry cook's apprentice he served his time, and then, without any thought of becoming anything else in the world, he set off with several other pastry cooks to go to Rome, where their talents were to be well rewarded.

But how strangely things fall out! In Rome he was engaged to make tarts for Agostine Tassi, a landscape painter. His work was not simply to furnish his master with desserts, but to do general housekeeping, and it fell to his lot to clean Tassi's paint brushes. So far as we know, this was the first introduction of Claude Lorrain to art other than culinary.

From cleaning brushes it was but a step to trying to use them upon canvas, and Tassi being a good-natured man, began to give Lorrain instruction, till the pastry cook became his master's assistant in the studio. This led to a larger and larger life for the young Frenchman, and he copied great masters, did original things, and finally in his twenty-fifth year returned to France a full-fledged artist. He remained there two years, and then went back to Italy, where he lived till he died. The visit to France turned out fortunately because on his way back he fell in with one of the original twelve members of the French Academy, Charles Errard, who became the first director of the Academy in Rome. A warm friendship sprang up between the men, and Errard was very helpful to the young artist.

Nevertheless, Lorrain did not gain much fame till about his fortieth year, when he was noticed by Cardinal Bentivoglio, and was given certain commissions by him. He grew in Bentivoglio's favour so much that the Cardinal introduced him to the pope. The Catholic Church set the fashions in art, politics, and history of all sorts at that time, so that Lorrain could not have had better luck than to become its favourite. The pope was Urban VIII., whose main business was to hold the power of the Church and make it stronger if he could, so that he was continually building fortresses and other fortifications, and he had use for artists and decorators. Lorrain's fame outlasted the life of Urban VIII., and he became a favourite in turn with each of the three succeeding popes. All this time he was doing fine work in Italy and for Italy, besides receiving orders for pictures from France, Holland, Germany, Spain, and England, for his fame had reached throughout the world.

Besides leaving many paintings behind him when he died, he left half a hundred etchings; also a more precise record of his work than most artists have left. He executed two hundred sketches in pen or pencil, washed in with brown or India ink, the high lights being brought out with touches of white. On the backs of them the artist noted the date on which the sketch was developed into a picture, and for whom the latter was intended. The story is that his popularity produced many imitators, and that he adopted this means to establish the identity of his own work and distinguish it from the many copies made.

These sketches were collected in a volume by Lorrain and called "Liber Veritatis," and for more than a hundred years the Dukes of Westminster have owned this.

PLATE--ACIS AND GALATEA