ARTISTS AND ANIMALS.
THE addition of a conscientious and sympathetic worker
to the ranks of British animal-painters is always welcome ; and the interesting, if unequal, sketches in pastel by Mr. J. T. Nettleship now exhibited at Mr. Dunthorne's gallery, the "Rembrandt Head," in Vigo Street, claim consideration on more grounds than one. The sketches have been drawn from life; they are not commonplace; and many of them are of considerable merit. The pictures of bears and lions are excellent, and the pastel treatment, which the artist does not seem yet to have thoroughly mastered in all cases, is in them used with great effect. The "Brown Bear and Cub" (60) is admirable. Bears have not been considered " paintable " by most artists ; but this, and the " Polar Bear " (55) coming out of the water, and the " Polar Bear and Cub " (44) are strong and clever sketches, full of life and vigour. In his lions and tigers, Mr. Nettleship is inclined to exaggerate the weight and massiveness of the head and fore- feet, a fault which is especially noticeable in the " Tiger Stretching" (20) and the "Lioness Carrying her Cub" (51), though the last is in other respects one of the best of the aketches. But the " Lioness Couched " (59) and the " Lion Questing " (18) are good ; and his lynx (20), and otters (14 and 15), are spirited and lifelike. The birds, on the other hand, are a complete failure. Neither the pastel nor Mr. Nettleship's treatment suits the subject; and the other sketches of foxes, horses, and sheep only strengthen our regret that specialisation, even when not desired by the painter, seems inseparable from the efforts of most artists who devote themselves, however conscientiously, to animal- painting. We except the case of Mr. Briton Riviere. But Mr. Sidney Cooper has spent a long lifetime in painting little ex- cept shorthorns and nicely washed sheep. Morland preferred sheep and pigs, whose wool and fat made a knowledge of anatomy unnecessary. Stubbs, though anxious to paint other animals, and a thorough master of anatomy, was, owing to the circumstances of his time, mainly a painter of horses ; and if the genius of Sir Edwin Landseer made him technically, if not in sentiment, a master of all animal forms—birds excepted—we must remember that the Japanese school of animal-painters, who, in the delineation of birds at least, are unrivalled, have minutely specialised, de- voting themselves singly to some particular animal, or birds, or even insects.
Mr. Nettleship's pictures are entirely free from any attempt to suggest animals' emotions by giving them human ex- pression,—a fault to which animal-painters are much addicted, and which has been justly censured in much of the work of Sir Edwin Landseer himself. It is a trick which will only deceive those unfamiliar with animals, but one the use of which Sir E. Landseer seldom denied himself in painting a " popular " picture. It is unfortunate that the collection of Landseers in the National Gallery mainly consists of paintings of dogs, which, from their quick, emotional nature, and con- stant relations with men, are tempting subjects for this false art. In " High Life. and Low Life " (410), the butcher's dog
is licking its lips and winking one eye. A vulgar dog certainly does lick its lips, because it eats in a vulgar way. One of the first accomplishments which a well-bred house-dog learns is to eat quietly and tidily, and not even the Prioress in the " Canterbury Tales" could be more particular in this mark of good manners. But the vulgarity of winking is too great for dogs; and Sir Edwin has credited the ban-dog with the expression of its master. The melancholy boredom in the face of the deerhound in the contrasting panel, is entirely human. In " Alexander and Diogenes" (608), the sturdy white cur swaggering in front of the tub is dog-like. So is the snarling Diogenes. But the artist has added a crowd of other dogs to tell the story, instead of leaving it to suggest itself. The toy- terrier and King Charles's spaniel are courtiers ; the two bloodhounds, counsellors, and so forth ; and the expression of the last is a piece of purely human sentiment, which does. not aid the " dog sentiment " of the two principal figures in the least. In " Dignity and Impudence," again, the intensely quick, restless glance of the little terrier's eyes is, perhaps, not exaggerated, But Landseer has chosen to make it show the tip of its tongue, which it holds between,, its lips,—a very common trick with children when their attention is much engaged on a subject near to them, such as a picture-book or a drawing. But a dog expresses interest by pricking up its ears. Its tongue is only shown when it is perspiring, which this comfortable little terrier in the bloodhound's kennel certainly is not. If any one doubts this tendency of Landseer to pat human expression into animal faces, he may, if his curiosity overcomes his distaste, refer to an early sketch (605), called " The Defeat of Comus." In this picture, the revellers wear no masks. They are monsters, men with the heads of animals The woman clinging to the central figure has the head of a white hind with woman's hair, and to this monstrous head Landseer has imparted an expression which we do not care to describe. Two other figures are pig-headed men ; though no animal face could exhibit the degradation which one of these swines' heads, crowned with roses, does. There is none of the weird imagination and cleverness of Albert Diirer's animal fiends in this coarse picture, nor even the vigorous grotesque of Teniers' goblins in "Dives Tormented" (863). It is commonplace of the worst kind, interesting only as a key to faults in other work which is otherwise faultless. This great defect, though frequently recurring, is by no means universal in Landseer's dog-pictures. In No. 411, a Highland shepherd playing the pipes to his dogs, the excitement or indifference of the terriers and deerhounds is equally real, and expressed in dog-fashion. The splendid " Sleeping Blood- hound " and the " Member of the Humane Society " are, perhaps, two of the best dog-portraits ever painted ; and Shoeing the Bay Mare " is, we think, the artist's best picture of domestic animals. But, in general, Landseer's paintings of stags are by far his best work. In wild country and among the deer, he never strikes a false note. In " The Monarch of the Glen " and " The Children of the Mist," sentiment and painting are such as to leave nothing further to be wished for. Unfortunately, most of these great works are in the hands of private owners.
Most domestic animals, the beasts of burden or of the farm, are placid creatures. If left to themselves, - they would doze away the summer day without any livelier emotions than those excited by the desire for change of pasture, or water, or shade. Most of the Dutch masters. accepted this fact. They went to the meadows and painted their comely cattle excellently well. Cuyp's large picture (53) is, in its way, one of the finest animal-paintings in the Gallery. The contented cattle, the dapple-grey horse with its red-coated rider, and the two dogs playing, the big, round-headed fellows that draw the carts of vegetables to market, are all admirable. In these Flemish paintings the Dutch dog is seldom absent,—in the streets, on the ice of the canals, or in the market-place, in serious dog-conversation with friends, or an earnest spectator of whatever is going forward. In Teniers' "Village Fete " (952), the dogs are all waiting with their masters to share the bounty of the noble family who stand in the centre of the circle. But of all the Dutch dogs, we prefer the long-haired terrier in T. Van Eyck's wonderful picture of John Arnolfini and his wife. Nothing in this minutely finished painting is better done than the bright little dog, probably not the least-valued object in the orderly and beautiful room which Van Eyck painted so faithfully.
The matter-of-fact treatment of animals is the rule in Dutch pictures. But there is one striking exception. Rubella, looking at Nature with the painter's eye, and master of all sides of his art, enriched his canvas with animal forms where and how he pleased. Sometimes he preferred conventional treatment, lessening the size of the animal to give dignity to the human figures, like the horses of " The Twin Brethren," on the Monte Cavallo. In "The Triumph of Caesar," for instance, he diminishes the size of the two wild bulls to suit the com- position; and his elephants are such as he might have designed in grisaille for a piece of plate. But in the " Wolf- Hunt " and " Peace driving away the Horrors of War," they are treated naturally. The panther playing in the last picture is the finest piece of animal-painting of this kind we have ever seen. The richness of colour, action, and truth are unrivalled; and if our animal-painters desire a standard of excellence, they may well set the work of Rubens before them as an ideal.
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