The Battle Is The Interest, The Landscape Merely The
Stage.
Till the latter days of European life the artist took no notice of
landscape.
The painting of hills and rocks and rivers, woods and fields, is of
recent date, and even in these scenes the artist finds it necessary to
place some animals or birds. Even now he cannot ignore the strong love of
human beings for these creatures; if they are omitted the picture loses
its interest to the majority of eyes. Every one knows how wonderfully
popular the works of Landseer have been, and he was an animal painter,
and his subjects chiefly suggested by sport. The same spirit that
inspired the Cave-dweller to engrave the mammoth on the slab of ivory
still lives in the hearts of men.
There is a beautiful etching of "The Poacher" (to which I shall have to
recur); he is in the wood, and his dog is watching his upraised finger.
From that finger the dog learns everything. He knows by its motion when
to start, which way to go, what to do, whether to be quick or slow, to
return or to remain away. He understands his master quite as well as if
they conversed in human speech. He enters into the spirit of the
enterprise. 'If you want your business done, go; if not, send' is true
only of men. The poacher wants his business done, and he sends his
agent - his dog - certain that it will be done for him better than he could
do it himself. The dog is conscientious, he will omit nothing, he will
act as if his master's eye was on him the whole time. Now this attitude
of the dog's mind is so exquisitely rendered in the picture that he seems
verily to speak with intelligence. I love that dog though he does but
exist in ink; he is the true image of a real dog, and his mind shines
through his body. This effect upon me as the spectator is produced by a
clever arrangement of lines upon the plate from which the etching was
printed, thin lines cut into the copper with curious sharp tools, behind
a screen of tissue-paper to shield the eyes from the light, done in the
calm of the studio, thoughtfully, with artistic skill. Given the original
genius to conceive such a dog, the knowledge how to express the ideas,
and the tools to work with, and we see how it became possible to execute
the etching. But suppose the artist supplied with a piece of smooth ivory
for his plate, and a sharp penknife for his etching needle, and set
behind a boulder to watch the mammoth and sketch it by incision on the
ivory, and there would be produced very much the same kind of picture as
the Cave-man made. It could not have the delicate shading, the fine edge,
the completion and finish of the dog; it could not visibly think as that
dog thinks.
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