unconscious of his own, and avowed it with the frank simplicity of nobler times, is not more evident or more certain than that in comparison with his friends and fellows he was liable rather to undervalue than to overrate himself. He was a classic, and no formalist; the wide range of his just and loyal admiration had room for a genius so far from classical as
Blake’s. Nor in his own highest mood or method of creative as of critical work was he a classic only, in any narrow or exclusive sense of the term. On either side, immediately or hardly below his mighty masterpiece of
Pericles and Aspasia, stand the two scarcely less beautiful and vivid studies of mediaeval Italy and Shakespearean England. The very finest flower of his immortal dialogues is probably to bs found in the single volume comprising only “
Imaginary Conversations of Greeks and Romans”; his utmost command of passion and pathos may be tested by its transcendent success in the distilled and concentrated tragedy of
Tiberius and Vipsania, where for once he shows a quality more proper to romantic than classical imagination, the subtle and sublime and terrible power to enter the dark vestibule of distraction, to throw the whole force of his fancy, the whole fire of his spirit, into the “shadowing passion” (as
Shakespeare calls it) of gradually imminent insanity. Yet, if this and all other studies from ancient history or legend could be subtracted from the volume of his work, enough would be left whereon to rest the foundation of a fame which time could not sensibly impair.
LANDSBERG-AN-DER-WARTHE, chief town of a circle in the government district of Frankfort, in the province of Brandenburg, Prussia, is situated at the confluence of the Warthe and Kladow, 80 miles north-east of Berlin by rail. It has a gymnasium of the first class, a hospital, and a poorhouse, besides the other ordinary educational, charitable, and administrative provisions. The productive industry of Landsberg centres in the engine and boiler works and iron-foundries; but the other manufactures include a considerable miscellany, whose chief items are tobacco, cloth, carriages, wools, and spirits. An active trade is carried on in the manufactures of the town, and in the produce of the surrounding country. Landsberg dates its origin from about the middle of the 13th century. In 1875 its population was 21,379.
LANDSEER, Sir Edwin Henry (1802–1873), third son of John Landseer, A.R.A., a well-known engraver and able writer on art, was born in London, March 7, 1802. His mother was Miss Potts, who sit to Reynolds as the gleaner, with a sheaf of corn on her head, in Macklin's Family Picture, or the Cottagers.[1] Edwin Henry Landseer begin his artistic education under his father so successfully that in his fifth year he drew fairly well, and was acquainted with animal characters and passions. Etchings of his, at South Kensington, dated by his father, attest that he drew excellently at eight years of age; at ten he was an admirable draughtsman, and his etchings show consider able sense of humour. At thirteen he drew a majestic St Bernard dog so finely that his brother Thomas engraved and published the work. At this date (1815) he sent two pictures to the Academy, and was described in the catalogue as "Master E. Landseer, 33 Foley Street." Youth forbade his being reckoned as an artist in full, and caused him to be considered 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 Haydon, whose pupil he was not otherwise, he studied the Elgin Marbles, the "Wild Beasts" in the Tower and Exeter Change, and dissected every animal whose carcase he could obtain. In 1816. in which year he exhibited with the Society of Painters in Oil and Water Colours, Landseer was admitted a student of the Royal Academy. In 1817 he sent to the Academy a portrait of Old Brutus, a much-favoured dog, which, as well as his son, another Brutus, often appeared in subsequent pictures. Even at this date Landseer enjoyed considerable reputation, and had more work than he could readily perform, because his renown had been zealously fostered by his father in Elmes's Annals of Art. At the Academy he was a diligent student and a favourite of Fuseli's, who would look about the crowded antique school and ask, "Where is my little dog boy?" The prices of his pictures at this time were comparatively small; ten guineas was, in 1818, considered enough for a whole length figure of a horse on a canvas of 27 by 35 inches, which now belongs to Lady C. Wellesley.
In 1818 Landseer exhibited at Spring Gardens Fighting Dogs getting Wind, a picture from which his future might have been predicted. The sale of this work to Sir G. Beaumont vastly enhanced the fame of the painter, who became "the fashion" in a way disclosed by Ilaydon's account of his own and Wilkie's positions under similar circumstances nearly at the same date. This picture is now at Coleorton, and it illustrates the culmination of the studies of Landseer's youth ar.d the prime strength of his earlier style. Unlike the productions of his later life, this masterpiece of his boyhood exhibits not an iota of sentiment; but it is, in its way, a proof of astonishing vigour in design, and richer in animal character than anything produced since the death of Snyders. Perfectly drawn, solidly and minutely finished, bold in tone, and carefully composed, the execution of this picture attested the skill that had been acquired during ten years studies from nature, and the learning with which diligent observation of the best antiques and of Raphael had endowed the painter. Looking at the work as a whole, and valuing it on technical grounds, the critic feels that Landseer never produced anything better or so manly. On this level he stood until 1824, when he removed from his father's residence, and set up for himself in the house No. 1 (after wards 18) St John's "Wood Road, where he lived nearly fifty years, and in which he died. In 1818 it was little more than a cottage, with a barn attached, which was con verted into a studio. Between 1818 and 1825 Landseer did a great deal of work, but on the whole gained little besides facility of technical expression, a greater zest for humour, and a larger style. The work of this stage ended with the production of Lord Essex's painting called the Cat's Paw, which is well known by an engraving. It was the price of this picture, 100, that enabled Landseer to set up for himself. He had to borrow a second hundred pounds to pay a premium for the house, arid repaid this sum by twenty pounds at a time. Between 1818 and 1825 Landseer's pictures were such as proved the severity of his studies; among them the principal were the Cat Disturbed, which was Litely in the possession of Sir P. de Malpas Grey Egerton; Alpine Mastiffs reanimating a Distressed Traveller, a famous work engraved by John Landseer; the Ratcatchers, which is now at Lambton Castle; Pointers to be; the Larder invaded; and Neptune, the head and shoulders of a Newfoundland dog. The Cat's Paw was sent to the British Institution in 1824, and made an enormous sensation. In this year Landseer and C. R. Leslie made a journey to the Highlands, -a momentous visit for the former, who thenceforward rarely failed annually to repeat it in search of studies and subjects.
- ↑ John Landseer died February 29, 1852, aged ninety-one. 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, and will represent them when they have perished, was born in 1796, and died January 20, 1880. Charles Landseer, R.A., and Keeper of the Royal Academy, the second brother, was born in 1799, and died July 22, 1879. John Landseer's brother Henry was a painter of some reputation, who emigrated to Australia.
