CHAPTER II.

A.D. 1802 TO A.D. 1817.

EDWIN HENRY LANDSEER--EARLY DRAWINGS--PICTURES OF DOGS--HAYDON’S STUDIO--MR. RUSKIN’S CRITICISM.

Edwin Henry Landseer was, as stated above, born in 1802--the year before another animal painter of modern note, Mr. T. S. Cooper--and that event happened at his father’s house, No. 83,[12] Queen Anne Street East (not Turner’s Queen Anne Street), and consequently at his death he was in his seventy-second year. For the greater part of this long period he retained far more health and activity than are commonly vouchsafed to those who pass the allotted term of human life. How that life was spent, what are the pictures he produced, and under what circumstances they were executed, I have now, to the best of my means, to inquire and detail. The best living authority avers that our subject was by no means diligent at school, in fact, he was “always running away from his teachers, and always drawing.” His artistic education was begun by his father at a very early age, but not before natural ability had made itself evident in sketching and drawing. Training of the best sort was soon afforded by the judicious care of John Landseer, who directed his son’s practice, after the mode of the greatest masters, to Nature, so that “as soon as he could hold a pencil with some steadiness,” says Mr. R. N. Wornum, the biographer of Landseer in the “English Cyclopædia,” the boy was sent or accompanied into the fields to draw from sheep, goats, and donkeys; and especially did he find space for this mode of study on Hampstead Heath, where the creatures grazed or stood as nearly in a state of nature as civilization permits to any of their kind in England; and certainly in that condition of their existence which is familiar to us. The following account, obligingly furnished to me by the late Miss Meteyard, at once confirms and illustrates this early history:--

“In 1849--1850 the Howitts resided in Avenue Road, St. John’s Wood, and the father of Edwin Landseer no great way off. William Howitt and Mr. John Landseer being well acquainted, and often meeting in their walks, would go and return together; sometimes one way, sometimes another, but generally in the direction of Hampstead. One evening, in passing along the Finchley Road towards Child’s Hill, Mr. Landseer stayed by a stile of ancient look, and said to his friend, ‘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 a 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 criticize 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.’

“Those acquainted with Hampstead and its environs will know these two fields at once. They lie nearly opposite what is now the Finchley Road Station of the North London Railway, and open out into West End Lane, a little below Frognal and the parish church. The old oak is still standing, though in withered decrepitude.[13] Indeed, till almost recent years, this was a region of oak-trees, and the whole neighbourhood was picturesque in the extreme. But much of this beauty is now effaced.

“Belonging to Sir John Maryon Wilson, Lord of the Manor of Hampstead, and abutting the corner of West End Lane, these fields will, at no late date, be covered with ‘villas’ and other buildings. But the fact that the site was Edwin Landseer’s _first studio_ may be preserved by in some manner naming it after the illustrious painter.

“This interesting fact was told me by Mr. Howitt whilst walking through these fields about twenty years ago.

“ELIZA METEYARD.”

The representation of animals in that mode of life in which the creatures existed, is that practice which, being best understood by the common world, would best sustain the objects of an artist who had to do with so many beasts which were but semi-barbarous, and not in a state of natural fierceness and wildness. The reader who wishes to see what was the merit of studies thus pursued, is referred to the South Kensington Museum, British Art Collection, where a series of nine drawings, executed at a very early period of his life by Edwin Landseer, and duly marked with the dates of their production, will not alone evoke admiration for the nature-given ability of the draughtsman, but testify, that with such ability to back the practice his father devised, the son was fortunate in receiving that father’s counsel. Further, the observer will note how zealously the boy-pupil bent his mind to the task with all the pleasantness which attends the exercise of natural powers.

This is enforced by Miss Meteyard’s communication. Be it remembered that even such natural ability as that of Landseer was not trained without strenuous and long-continued labours.[14] The same course was pursued by him in painting, and he never, during this early stage, drew without nature; not, probably, carrying the principle of study in this fashion to the virtuous excess of William Henry Hunt, his contemporary, of whom it is said that he would not draw a pin without a model; a saying which implies the devotion of the man to truth, rather than that he refused to avail himself of his own experience. That the one would not paint a pin without a model is as true as that the other painted dogs best because he relied on nature from the first, and succeeded most in painting them while he relied most on nature. The drawings and sketches which are referred to were reserved by John Landseer from a much larger number of his son’s productions, and by means of notes in that father’s hand--notes written in affectionate pride, indicating that some of them were made when the boy was but five years old--declare the progress and precocity of their subject; so that we see how in the fifth year of his age Landseer drew well, and thoroughly studied animal character and humour.[15]

Landseer’s precocity exceeded that of Lucas van Leyden, one of the great artists whose early skill has made them wonderful, and added interest to their after-glory. Lucas van Leyden etched designs of his own when he was but nine years of age. When he was fourteen appeared his famous print of Mahomet killing Sergius the Monk. When Van Leyden was twelve he painted “St. Hubert,” thereby beating Edwin Landseer in pictorial progress, if not in precocity of draughtsmanship. To have been so nearly neck-and-neck in early development with such a magnificent genius as that of Lucas van Leyden, and to have maintained that remarkable position through a long life, was a singular fortune. Van Leyden, however, died at thirty-nine years of age. Sir Edwin’s years attained to nearly double that period.

At the sale of Mr. M. W. Simpson’s pictures, in 1848 (Mr. Simpson was an early friend and patron of Landseer’s), a considerable number of the artist’s youthful productions were disposed of, many of which were, we believe, painted at about this period of his career. Of those probably executed a little later, but which for convenience sake we may as well refer to here, if it were but to declare how these pictures have risen in value, the following were examples:--“A Scotch Terrier with a Rat in his mouth,” sold for, although not more than four inches by five inches, sixty-eight guineas, and would now, twenty-five years later, produce treble that sum. This work has been engraved, we believe, by Mr. T. Landseer. “Waiting for Orders,” a full length portrait of Mr. Simpson’s coachman, sold for thirty-two guineas. This was not that portrait of a deer-hound which is now called “Waiting,” and was engraved by J. C. Webb. “The Paddock,” an old chestnut horse, and a white Scotch terrier near it, with a distant view of Windsor Castle, sold for one hundred guineas. If this could happen twenty-five years ago, with regard to unexhibited pictures of comparatively small account, what could be expected now, although the artist was most prolific, and not, like Mulready, accustomed to confine his labours to a few canvases or panels? For this question of the comparative prices of old and later pictures by Landseer we shall enable the reader to form an answer for himself ere our task is complete.

Among the minor works of the painter, none have so much interest as examples of the etchings which were produced when he was little more than an infant. The inherent ability of the man’s mind is more distinctly and decidedly marked in these comparatively unimportant works than in those which received the benefit of years of study and of craft, and were produced when his natural powers had been consummated by practice upon a score of pictures, being the fruits of an intelligence developed to the utmost in that way which these very etchings, more than any other means, declare to be proper, apt and natural to it. Edwin Landseer continued the practice of etching, and made the results of these labours proportionately as valuable and meritorious as his pictures. It is not, however, to the products of his perfected skill that we now address our remarks, so much as to the works of his infancy, boyhood, and youth. As some of these juvenile productions are very rare, and consequently little studied, although much admired in artistic circles, our readers will not be sorry to have an account of a collection of them, including works duly annotated with the age, of the artist at the time they were executed.[16]

The first etching on our list is said to be also that which was produced before all others by “Master E. Landseer,” and to have been wrought five years ere he appeared in the Royal Academy display as an “Honorary Exhibitor;” doubtless the youngest of his class before or since that date. It was done in his eighth year, and one plate comprises several subjects, thus:--1. The Head of an Ass; which, by the way, is not thoroughly understood, if one may so write of the production of so capable an artist; for the head is not well articulated with the neck, or complete in drawing as to placing the eyes on a level with each other. Yet it is full of truth in the rendering of texture and expression, as the beast bites sideways at the large-leaved herbage; his ears are standing well above his head, and one eye is turned towards us in a very asinine fashion, steadfastly watching, while the other is directed downwards as the animal’s wrenching nibble goes on. 2. Is the Head of a Shorthorned Sheep, with the exact expression of nature in its ever mobile and quivering lips; the eye is that of the timid creature, yet seems to meditate. The foreshortening of the horns is astonishing as the workmanship of a child-draughtsman. 3. Is the Head of a Sheep in the act of browsing; this calls for no remark, except that of general admiration for its excellent drawing. 4. Is the Head, on a larger scale than the others, of a long-tusked, deep-snouted Boar, while dozing in the sun. Besides these, and probably of even earlier origin, is a not very well-drawn Head of a Sheep in full-face; here the eyes are a little out of drawing. On this account, although the defect may be due to the greater difficulty of the subject when so placed, we are inclined to believe this etching to be more remote in execution than the above-described examples, which are, as the productions of a boy of eight years of age, so far wonderful that they are really better drawn and more truly expressive than the work of most adult artists. On the same plate with the sheep’s head in front view is (1) a Donkey, at full length, so to say, _i.e._, standing on all fours, and biting at his leg--a capital study, full of action and spirit; (2) a Donkey and her Foal.

On another plate are the heads of a lion and tiger (see the last note), in which the differing characters of the beasts are given with marvellous craft, that would honour a much older artist than the producer. The drawing of the tiger’s whiskers--always difficult things to manage--is admirable in its rendering of foreshortened curves. Then comes a drawing of a young bull, wrought by Edwin Landseer at nine years of age, and etched by his by no means very distant senior brother Thomas; this brute’s walk, the peculiar shouldering, lounging way of his kind, rolling from shoulder to shoulder, is here in perfection; the bull whisks his tail lightly from side to side.

Next is another specimen, but on a larger scale than those which are above described. It exhibits an extraordinarily finely drawn bull, the foreshortening and handling of whose form is perfect; his expression is that of a rigid conventionalist--for bulls are not unlike men in these matters of temperament--a thoroughly old-fashioned John Bull. Behind this is a foreshortened view of a horse reclining, and, in the distance of the field, which supplies a landscape-background to the composition, is a goat. The work of the young artist’s tenth year shows great progress to have been made, for he wrought the whole design, and entirely etched the next plate, which represents two groups of cattle placed one above the other on the paper, which is disposed, as artists say, upright-fashion, and of about the size and proportion of a large octavo book. In the lower section is the representation of a ponderous beast, couched at ease, yet with all his strength drawn together by the attitude of resting with his limbs beneath his bulky body; he has downward-pointing horns. He is a surly “_oldish_” bull, who breathes the breath of content in summer, but with possibilities of fury in his irritable moodiness; not a stupid bull, although terrible when exasperated; he is evidently apt to lose his temper on slight occasions. Behind this surly monster stands an intensely stupid brute, one who is evidently given up to all sorts of self-indulgences, and who in every possible fashion spoils himself; his countenance is absolutely besotted; he has a hog-like air, and his very tail hangs heavily straight down from his back; with these is grouped a maternal cow, who is large, if not like Byron’s “Dudu,” “languishing and lazy.”

Executed in the same year of the draughtsman’s life we have another group, drawn on the same plate with the above-named studies of animals. This is a bovine family. Maternity itself appears in the shape of a stumpy-footed cow; fatherhood, in the portly figure of a bull whose knit brows and self-satisfied look about his chaps, his broad bowed neck and vast chest, are honoured by imitation in the little bull-calf which reclines before its parents, ruminating, if not meditating, and “the picture of his father.” Produced at about the same period as the last is an admirable etching of a cow and bull-calf. The former, by the leanness of her haunches and flanks, shows the stress of the debt of milk she is paying to the latter, or to the more exacting pail: on her back a ridge of spines is distinct; large aspiring promontories of bone crop up in the rearward regions of the milky mother, not unlike, in their ruggedness and the slopes which form their sides, the steep forms of granite mountains as they are thrust through sedimentary deposits of a later date. At her feet lies the blunt-nosed bull-calf of her heart.

Next, in the same collection, and said to be of still earlier origin, comes a much larger production, etched by Mr. Thomas Landseer from a drawing by his brother, our subject. This noble plate represents an Alpine mastiff of the great St. Bernard breed, which had been in the second decade of this century imported to this country by a gentleman of Liverpool.[17]

An inscription at the foot of the plate informs us that, at a year old, this magnificent creature was six feet four inches long; and, at the middle of his back, stood two feet seven inches in height. The note in question adds that the animals of this breed are employed by the fraternity of Mont St. Bernard, not only in the rescue of travellers from snowdrifts, in which the latter may have been engulfed, but as beasts of burthen, and that they are capable of carrying a hundredweight of provisions from the town on which the monks rely, to the hospice, a distance of eighteen miles. The drawing was done by Sir Edwin Landseer when he was about thirteen years of age, that is, in the year 1815.

It is really one of the finest drawings of a dog that has ever been produced; we do not think that even the artist at any time surpassed its noble workmanship. In its form are reproduced all the characteristics of such a beast. The head, though expansive and domical in its shape, is small in proportion to that of a Newfoundland dog; the brow is broad and round; the eyes, according to the standard commonly assumed for large dogs, are far from being large, and are very steadfast in their look, without fierceness; the ears are pendulous, placed near to the head, and fleshy in substance. This St. Bernard dog has a great hanging jowl and finely formed nose; which last, as is commonly the case with creatures whose sense of smell is delicate, tapers slightly to the nostrils. The chest is broad and square, but by no means heavy; the forelegs are brawny, yet elegant, with broad and firmly placed feet. The body is comparatively long and rather slender in its contours, the belly is hollow, and the hind legs nervously lean and remarkably muscular. Withal, this beast has a grave and dignified walk which is pleasant to see.

Next, and returning to early examples in the same collection, we have an etching of some sheep, “Southdowns,” which is comparatively unsuccessful. After this comes the “Head of a Ram,” of about half life-size, with doubly voluted horns, pointing downwards. To an artist’s eyes, or those of one who is capable of truly appreciating this superb drawing, the real proof of the draughtsman’s power is to be seen in the foreshortening of the twisted and wreathed horns; the execution of these parts is marvellous for precision and “clearness” of line, for the elaborate involuting of the protuberances, and the manner in which perspective of very delicate and intricate nature has been expressed by the deft craftsmanship.

A Group of Lions in a hollow on a mountain side supplied the subject of the next example in our series of illustrations. Etched by Thomas Landseer is a copy of a retriever lying down, and behind him another dog, whose features recall “Brutus,” the artist’s very old favourite,[18] and the subject of several works by him, to one of which we elsewhere more particularly allude. Next are heads of a pointer and a spaniel, both of great beauty as to the execution--an extraordinarily brilliant production of the engraver. Here we shall place the fore-part of a tiger, crouching and seeking prey. Finally, two admirable prints, the one representing a gaunt French hog, standing munching before its sty, and having an elaborate landscape background. A plate of this was published with a slight modification, and styled “A French Hog, the property of Mr. Bacon, of the Black Boy Inn, near Chelmsford.” By way of fellow appeared “An English Hog.” The French Hog is a ludicrous beast, antithetical to its companion subject, and one of the most uncouth, long-legged, swift-looking, sharp-nosed, flat-sided, hollow-bellied of animals, covered with bristles that recall a porcupine’s quills, which are gathered in lines on his flanks, and project from his limbs like ragged old thatch on a ruined cottage roof. The English Boar looks a mere round barrel of lard mounted on two pairs of wonderfully short legs, with a head stuck on one of its ends, and a tail attached to the upper part of the other.[19]

Almost every place where animals might be seen to advantage was visited by Edwin Landseer during this period, the Tower among them. At this time was observed the incident which furnished a capital subject of “a lion’s and a dog’s friendship,” which is reproduced, with three others, in Thomas Landseer’s book, “Twenty Engravings of Lions, Panthers, &c.” The story is briefly this: a lioness, an orphan of course, had been captured in very early cub-hood and brought on board ship, and was suckled by a bitch, for whom, although she soon surpassed her nurse in size and strength, she ever retained the utmost affection, and some respect. The attached couple being shown in Exeter Change menagerie, attracted much admiration, and were the source of delight to thousands.

The other three works by Edwin Landseer in this collection are “A Combat between a Lion, Tiger, and a Panther, contending for a dead Fawn,” “A Tiger tearing the carcase of an Indian Bullock,” and “The Frontispiece.” Spilsbury, an artist of considerable ability, contributed modifications of designs by Rubens, Rembrandt, Stubbs, and others; there is likewise one by T. Landseer, representing “A Tigress defending her Cubs from a Snake.”

Ere this period of his studies was past, “Master Edwin Landseer” justified so much public interest that his doings were chronicled by his father; and in Elmes’s well-known “Annals of Art” he was referred to as a promising student. Some of his early studies appeared in “The Sporting Magazine,” whence they were, as stated above, collected and republished. Incessantly he drew and painted from nature, without reference to copies; in this was the source of his knowledge of life, truth in design, and mastery of the forms of animals, and of their varied coverings.

The first appearance of the painter, then only thirteen years of age, occurred in 1815, and is thus recorded in the Catalogue of the Royal Academy Exhibition of that year: “_Master E. Landseer, H.; 33, Foley Street_.”[20] The subjects of the pictures contributed to the annual gatherings of works of art indicate very clearly what had been the youthful painter’s studies. As is not commonly the wont of young artists, “Master Edwin Landseer” did not aspire to a subject. Nothing heroic, pathetic, or dramatic came from his easel at that date, but simply two portraits of animals. They are thus described:--“No. 443. Portrait of a Mule, the property of W. H. Simpson, Esq., of Beleigh Grange, Essex;” and, “No. 584. Portraits of a Pointer Bitch and Puppy.” The latter was painted for the owner of the mule, and both pictures appeared among those early works of Sir Edwin’s which were, as before stated, sold in 1848, after the death of Mr. Simpson. James Ward, being essentially a cattle painter, these examples are important, because they are the first seriously studied pictures by the first English painter who, since Hogarth, had painted a dog with due regard to individuality and character, to say nothing of pathos and dramatic expressiveness, passion, energy, and humour. Hogarth had painted several dogs with admirable skill, _e. g._, the telling portrait of “Trump” in his own likeness, now in the National Gallery, and there are dogs in “A Rake’s Progress.” John Wooton was the fashionable dog painter of Hogarth’s day, who did many canine portraits, notably that of Horace Walpole’s “Patapan,” as recorded in his master’s letter to Mann, Ap. 25, 1743. Stubbs painted several capital dogs, as accessories to his horses. Both Gainsborough and Romney used dogs in like situations. Nevertheless, it is true that between Snyder’s and Landseer’s days the “friend of man,” as an independent subject of study, was neglected by artists.

Another artist of great note was beginning to make a mark which is likely to grow deeper as the world grows older, for in the man were many fine powers of art and criticism. He was closely associated with our subject. This was Leslie, who arrived in England in 1811, and was at this time, 1815, residing next door to Flaxman, _i.e._, at No. 8, Buckingham Place, or Street, Fitzroy Square. In 1816 Leslie, eight years Landseer’s senior, made a bold attempt with a congenial theme from English poetical history, a class of subject which he affected warmly, being “The Death of Rutland,” from “The Third Part of Henry VI.,” Act i.