Landseer A collection of fifteen pictures and a portrait of the painter with introduction and interpretation

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Title: Landseer

A collection of fifteen pictures and a portrait of the

painter with introduction and interpretation

Author: Estelle M. Hurll

Release Date: July 15, 2010 [EBook #33166]

Language: English

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THE CONNOISSEURS

Property of King Edward VII

The Riverside Art Series

LANDSEER

A COLLECTION OF FIFTEEN PICTURES

AND A PORTRAIT OF THE PAINTER

WITH INTRODUCTION AND

INTERPRETATION

BY

ESTELLE M. HURLL

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

The Riverside Press, Cambridge

1901

Copyright, 1901, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

Published November, 1901.

PREFACE

The wide popularity of Landseer has been chiefly due to the circulation of engravings after his works. This little book is, so far as I know, the first attempt to bring together a collection of his pictures made in the modern process of half tone, from photographs direct from the original paintings. It is hoped that they may give a fairly good idea of the range and character of his art.

ESTELLE M. HURLL.

New Bedford, Mass.

September, 1901.

CONTENTS AND LIST OF PICTURES

INTRODUCTION

I. ON LANDSEER'S CHARACTER AS AN ARTIST.

If the popularity of a painter were the measure of his artistic greatness, Sir Edwin Landseer's would be among the foremost of the world's great names. At the height of his career probably no other living painter was so familiar and so well beloved throughout the English-speaking world. There were many homes in England and America where his pictures were cherished possessions.

While popular opinion is never a safe basis for a critical estimate, it must be founded on reasons worth considering. In the case of Landseer there is no doubt that a large element in his success was his choice of subjects. The hearts of the people are quickly won by subjects with which they are familiar in everyday life. A universal love for animals, and especially for domestic pets, prepared a cordial welcome for the painter of the deer and the dog. His pictures supplied a real want among the class of people who know and care nothing about art for art's sake.

The dramatic power with which Landseer handled his subjects was the deeper secret of his fame. He knew how to tell a story with a simple directness which has never been surpassed. With almost equal facility for humor and pathos, he alternated between such inimitable satire as the Jack in Office and such poignant tragedy as the Highland Shepherd's Chief Mourner. Before pictures like these, the keenest criticism must confirm the popular verdict. Poetic imagination is one of the most coveted of the artist's gifts, and Landseer's rich endowment commands universal admiration.

The artist who is a story teller finds it one of the most difficult tasks to keep within proper limits. He is under a constant temptation to emphasize his point too strongly, to exaggerate his meaning in order to make it plain. That Landseer never fell into such error none would dare to claim. In interpreting the emotions of dumb animals he sometimes overdrew, or seemed to overdraw, their resemblance to human beings. Only those who have observed animals as closely as he—and how few they are—are competent to decide in this matter. When one thoroughly considers the question, the wonder is less that he sometimes made mistakes, than that he made so few. As a sympathetic critic has said: Nothing short of the most exquisite perception of propriety on his part could have enabled him to give innumerable versions of the inner life of animals with so little of the exaggeration and fantasticalness which would have easily become repugnant to the common sense of Englishmen.[1]

[1] Henrietta Keddie (Sarah Tytler).

Among Landseer's technical qualities the critic has highest praise for his drawing. He was a born draughtsman, as we see in the astonishing productions