LAND SEER, SIR EDWIN HENRY Eng lish painter, third son of John Landseer, A.R.A.', a well-known engraver and writer on art, was born in London, on March 7, 1802. Edwin Henry Landseer began his artistic education under his father. At five he could draw fairly well, and at eight excellently, as is seen from the drawings at South Kensington, dated by his father. At ten he was an admirable draughtsman and his work shows considerable sense of humour. At thirteen he drew a majestic St. Bernard dog so finely that his brother Thomas en graved and published the work. In this year (1815) he sent two pictures to the Royal Academy, and was described in the catalogue as "Master E. Landseer, 33 Foley Street." Owing to his youth he was named as the "Honorary Exhibitor" of "No. 443, Portrait of a Mule," and "No. 584, Portraits of a Pointer Bitch and Puppy." Adopting the advice of B. R. Haydon, he studied the Elgin Mar bles, the animals in the Tower of London and Exeter 'Change, and dissected every animal whose carcass he could obtain. In 1816 Landseer was admitted a student of the Royal Academy schools. In 1817 he sent to the Academy a portrait of "Old Brutus," a much-favoured dog, which, as well as its son, another Brutus, often appeared in his later pictures.
In 1818 Landseer sent to the Society of Painters in Oil and Water Colours, then in Spring Gardens, his "Fighting Dogs get ting Wind." This picture, bought by Sir George Beaumont, illus trates the prime strength of Landseer's earlier style. Another product of this period was ",The Cat's Paw," which was sent to the British Institution in 1824, and made an enormous sensation. With the Lioo obtained for this picture Landseer moved into the house at No. 1 St. John's Wood Road, where he lived nearly so 'John Landseer died on Feb. 29, 1852, aged 91 (or 83, according to Cosmo Monkhouse). Sir Edwin's eldest brother Thomas, an A.R.A. and a famous engraver, whose interpretations of his junior's pictures have made them known throughout the world, was born in 1795, and died on Jan. 20, 1880. Charles Landseer, R.A., and Keeper of the Royal Academy, the second brother, was born in 1799, and died on July 22, 1879. John Landseer's brother Henry was a painter of some reputation, who emigrated to Australia.
years and in which he died. During this period Landseer's princi
pal pictures were "The Cat Disturbed"; "Alpine Mastiffs reani mating a Distressed Traveller," a famous work engraved by his father ; "The Ratcatchers"; "Pointers to be"; "The Larder In vaded"; and "Neptune," the head of a Newfoundland dog.
In 1826 Landseer was elected an A.R.A. In 1827 appeared "The Monkey who has seen the World," a successor to the humor ous "Cat's Paw." "Taking a Buck" (1825) was the painter's first Scottish picture, inspired by his journey to the Highlands in Its execution marked a change in his style which, in increase of largeness, was a great improvement. In other respects, how ever, there was a decrease of solid qualities; indeed, finish, searching modelling, and elaborate draughtsmanship rarely ap peared in Landseer's work after 1823. The subject, as such, soon after this time became a very distinct element in his pictures; ultimately it dominated, and in effect the artist enjoyed a greater degree of popularity than technical judgment justified, so that later criticism has put Landseer's position in art much lower than the place he once occupied. Sentiment gave new charm to his works, which had previously depended on the expression of animal passion and character, and the exhibition of noble qualities of draughtsmanship. Sentimentality ruled in not a few pictures of later dates, and quasi-human humour, or pathos, super seded that masculine animalism which rioted in its energy, and enabled the artist to rival Snyders, if not Velazquez, as a painter of beasts. His later pictures were not less true to nature than their forerunners, but the models were chosen from different grades of animal society. As Landseer prospered he kept finer company, and his new patrons did not care about rat-catching and dog-fighting, however vigorously and learnedly those subjects might be depicted. After "High Life" and "Low Life," now in the Tate Gallery, London, Landseer's dogs, and even his lions and birds, were sometimes more than half civilized. It cannot be said that the world lost much when, in exchange for the "Cat Dis turbed" and "Fighting Dogs getting Wind," came "Jack in Office," "The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner" and "The Swannery in vaded by Eagles," three noble and distinctive types of Landseer's art.