Edwin Henry Landseer
Paintings
Ziva a badger-dog belonging to the Hereditary Prince of Saxe Coburg-Gotha
The Cat's Paw
Highland Dogs
Night. Two Stags Battling by Moonlight
Standing to Attention
Doctor's Visit to Poor Relations at the Zoological Gardens
White Collie in a landscape
The Poor Dog. The Shepherd's Grave
The Hunting of Chevy Chase
West End Fair. Monkeys and Dogs performing on a Stage
Studies of Cattle and Sheep
Ptarmigan in a Landscape
The Bride of Lammermoor
Some of the best Harts in the Forest
Dash
Duchess of Bedford's Hut, Glenfeshie
Morning (Two Dead Stags and a Fox)
A bloodhound lying on a rug next to a helmet and a loom
Windsor Castle in Modern Times
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
The Duchess of Abercorn and her Child
The 4th Duke of Atholl and his game keeper John Crerar
Queen Victoria at Osborne House
The Monkey Who Had Seen the World
Isaac van Amburgh and his Animals
Victoria, Princess Royal, with Eos
Eos, A Favorite Greyhound of Prince Albert
"Trial by Jury" or "Laying Down The Law"
Princess Alice of the United Kingdom
Portrait of Mr. Van Amburgh, As He Appeared with His Animals at the London Theatres
Favourites, the Property of H.R.H. Prince George of Cambridge
Deer and Deer Hounds in a Mountain Torrent
Scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Titania and Bottom
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at the Bal Costumé of 12 May 1842
Venus, a Landseer Newfoundland with a Rabbit
See also: Engravings of Lions, Tigers, Panthers, Leopards, Dogs, etc., by Thomas Landseer
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer RA (7 March 1802 – 1 October 1873) was an English painter,[1] well known for his paintings of animals—particularly horses, dogs and stags. However, his best known works are the lion sculptures in Trafalgar Square.
Life
Landseer 1873
Landseer was born in London, the son of the engraver John Landseer A.R.A.[2] He was something of a prodigy whose artistic talents were recognised early on. He studied under several artists, including his father, and the history painter Benjamin Robert Haydon, who encouraged the young Landseer to perform dissections in order to fully understand animal musculature and skeletal structure. Landseer's life was entwined with the Royal Academy. At the age of just 13, in 1815, he exhibited works there. He was elected an Associate at the age of 24, and an Academician five years later in 1831. He was knighted in 1850, and although elected President in 1866 he declined the invitation.
In his late
30s Landseer suffered what is now believed to be a substantial nervous
breakdown, and for the rest of his life was troubled by recurring bouts
of melancholy, hypochondria, and depression, often aggravated by
alcohol and drug use.[3] In the last few years of his life Landseer's
mental stability was problematic, and at the request of his family he
was declared insane in July 1872.
Painting
Edwin Henry Landseer self-portrait
Monarch of the Glen, 1851: the image was widely distributed in steel engravings
The Shrew Tamed
Landseer
was a notable figure in 19th-century British art, and his works can be
found in Tate Britain, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Kenwood House
and the Wallace Collection in London. He also collaborated with fellow
painter Frederick Richard Lee.
Landseer's popularity in
Victorian Britain was considerable, and his reputation as an animal
painter was unrivalled.[2] Much of his fame—and his income—was
generated by the publication of engravings of his work, many of them by
his brother Thomas.[4]
His appeal crossed class boundaries:
reproductions of his works were common in middle-class homes, while he
was also popular with the aristocracy. Queen Victoria commissioned
numerous pictures from the artists. Initially asked to paint various
royal pets, he then moved on to portraits of ghillies and gamekeepers,
Then, in the year before her marriage, the queen commissioned a
portrait of herself, as a present for Prince Albert.[5] He taught both
Victoria and Albert to etch,[6] and made portraits of Victoria's
children as babies, usually in the company of a dog.[7] He also made
two portraits of Victoria and Albert dressed for costume balls, at
which he was a guest himself.[8] One of his last paintings was a
life-size equestrian portrait of the Queen, shown at the Royal Academy
in 1873, made from earlier sketches.[9]
Landseer was
particularly associated with Scotland, which he had first visited in
1824 and the Highlands in particular, which provided the subjects (both
human and animal) for many of his important paintings.[10] The
paintings included his early successes The Hunting of Chevy Chase
(1825–6), An Illicit Whisky Still in the Highlands (1826–9) and his
more mature achievements, such as the majestic stag study Monarch of
the Glen (1851) and Rent Day in the Wilderness (1855–68).[11] In 1828,
he was commissioned to produce illustrations for the Waverley Edition
of Sir Walter Scott's novels.[10]
So popular and influential
were Landseer's paintings of dogs in the service of humanity, that the
name Landseer came to be the official name for the variety of
Newfoundland dog that, rather than being black or mostly black,
features a mix of both black and white. It was this variety Landseer
popularised in his paintings celebrating Newfoundlands as water rescue
dogs, most notably Off to the Rescue (1827), A Distinguished Member of
the Humane Society (1838), and Saved (1856). The paintings combine the
Victorian conception of childhood with the appealing idea of noble
animals devoted to humankind, a devotion indicated, in Saved, by the
fact the dog has rescued the child without any apparent human
involvement.
Laying Down The Law (1840) satirises the legal
profession through anthropomorphism. It shows a group of dogs, with a
poodle symbolising the Lord Chancellor.[12]
The Shrew Tamed,
was entered at the 1861 Royal Academy Exhibition and caused controversy
because of its subject matter. It showed a powerful horse on its knees
among straw in a stable, while a lovely young woman lies with her head
pillowed on its flanks, lightly touching its head with her hand. The
catalogue explained it as a portrait of a noted equestrienne, Ann
Gilbert, applying the taming techniques of the famous 'horse whisperer'
John Solomon Rarey.[13] Critics were troubled by the depiction of a
languorous woman dominating a powerful animal and some concluded
Landseer was implying the famous courtesan Catherine Walters, then at
the height of her fame.[14] Walters was an excellent horsewoman and
along with other "pretty horsebreakers", frequently appeared riding in
Hyde Park.
Some of Landseer's later works, such as his Flood
in the Highlands and Man Proposes, God Disposes (both of 1864) are
pessimistic in tone.[2] The latter shows two polar bears toying with
the bones of the dead and other remains, from Sir John Franklin's
failed arctic expedition.[15] The painting was purchased at auction by
Thomas Holloway and hangs in the picture gallery of Royal Holloway,
University of London. It is a college tradition to cover the painting
with a union jack, when exams are held in the gallery, as there is a
longstanding rumour that the painting drives people mad when they sit
by it.
Sculpture
One of four Lions around the base of Nelson's Column
Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner (1837; Victoria and Albert Museum, London).
In
1858 the government commissioned Landseer to make four bronze lions for
the base of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, following the
rejection of a set in stone by Thomas Milnes. Landseer accepted on
condition that he would not have to start work for another nine months,
and there was a further delay when he asked to be supplied with copies
of casts of a real lion he knew were in the possession of the academy
at Turin. The request proved complex, and the casts did not arrive
until the summer of 1860.[16] The lions were made at the Kensington
studio of Carlo Marochetti,[17] who also cast them. Work was slowed by
Landseer's ill health, and his fractious relationship with Marochetti.
The sculptures were installed in 1867.[16]
Death
Landseer's
death on 1 October 1873 was widely marked in England: shops and houses
lowered their blinds, flags flew at half mast, his bronze lions at the
base of Nelson's column were hung with wreaths, and large crowds lined
the streets to watch his funeral cortege pass.[18] Landseer was buried
in St Paul's Cathedral, London.
At his death, Landseer left
behind three unfinished paintings: Finding the Otter, Nell Gwynne and
The Dead Buck, all on easels in his studio. It was his dying wish that
his friend John Everett Millais should complete the paintings, and this
he did.[19]
Miscellaneous
Landseer was rumoured to be
able to paint with both hands at the same time, for example, paint a
horse's head with the right and its tail with the left, simultaneously.
He was also known to be able to paint extremely quickly—when the mood
struck him. He could also procrastinate, sometimes for years, over
certain commissions.
The architect Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens was named after him and was his godson—Lutyens' father was a friend of Landseer.
Notes
Monkhouse,
William Cosmo (1885). "Landseer, Edwin Henry". In Stephen, Leslie.
Dictionary of National Biography 2. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp.
64–68.
A Victorian Salon: Paintings from the Russell-Cotes Art
Gallery and Museum. Russell-Cotes Art Gallery in association with Lundl
Humphries. 1999. ISBN 0-85331-748-8.
Ormond, Monarch 125
Stephens (1880), p.4
Manson (1902), p.102
Manson (1902), p.104
Manson (1902), p.105
Manson (1902), p.106
Manson (1902), p.107
Hamlyn, Robin (1993). Robert Vernon's Gift. London: The Tate Gallery. p. 31. ISBN 1-85437-116-9.
[1]
Manson (1902), p.101
The Times, Saturday, May 04, 1861; pg. 12; Issue 23924; col A
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Vol. 90 (550) Aug 1861 Page 211
Manson (1902), p.161
Mace, Rodney (1975). Trafalgar Square:Emblem of Empire. London: Lawrence & Wishart. pp. 107–8. ISBN 085315-367-1.
F.
H. W. Sheppard (General Editor) (1983). "The Smith's Charity Estate:
Charles James Freake and Onslow Square Gardens". Survey of London:
volume 41: Brompton. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 11
October 2011.
Ormond, Monarch 135
JMillais, John Guille (1899). 'Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais 2. London: Methuen. p. 47.
References
Manson, James A. (1902). Sir Edwin Landseer R.A. London: Walter Scott Publishing Co.
Ormond, Richard (2005). The Monarch of the Glen: Landseer in the
Highlands. Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland.
Stephens, Frederic G. (1880). Sir Edwin Landseer. London: Sampson Low, Marston.
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