Landseer Part 2

The shop is a quaint little place such as one finds in English villages. The thick masonry of the walls shows how old the building is; the floor is paved with large blocks of stone. Between the anvil and the forge there is only s.p.a.ce enough for the horse to stand. Yet all the necessary tools are at hand, and a good blacksmith may shoe a horse as well here as in the most elaborate city establishment.

At this stage of the process the preparations are all over. The old shoes were first removed and the feet pared and filed. New shoes were chosen as near the right size as possible, and one by one shaped for each foot. Holding the shoe in his long tongs, the blacksmith thrusts it into the fire, while he fans the flames with the bellows. Thence it is transferred, a glowing red crescent, to the anvil. Now the workman swings his hammer upon it with ringing strokes, the sparks fly out in a shower, and the soft metal is shaped at will. The shoe may be made a little broader or a little longer, as the case may be; bent a trifle here or there, to accommodate the foot to be fitted. The steel toe calk is welded in, the ends are bent to form the heels, the holes for nails are punctured, the shoe taking an occasional plunge into the flames during these processes.

Now there must be a preliminary trying-on. The shoe still hot is held to the foot for which it is intended, and the air is filled with the fumes of burning hoof. Yet the horse does not flinch, for the thick hoof is a perfect protection for the sensitive parts of the foot. If the careful blacksmith is not quite satisfied with the fit, there must be more hammering on the anvil, and another trying on. When the shoe is satisfactory, it is thrust hissing into a barrel of cold water, and, cooled and hardened, is ready to be nailed on.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fr. Hanfstaengl, photo. John Andrew & Son, Sc.

SHOEING _National Gallery, London_]

It is at this point in the story that we come upon Betty. The farrier, after the approved method of his trade, holds the foot firmly between his knees, and bends to his task. The nails, long and flat, are in the tool-box on the floor beside him. A few firm blows of the hammer drive each one into place, first on one side, then on the other; the projecting points are twisted off every time, and finally, all the rough ends are filed smoothly on the outside of the hoof. Betty is at last fully shod and will step complacently home.

Our painter has arranged the four figures of the picture in a sort of circular composition, so that we may see each one in a characteristic pose. The bay mare is, of course, the chief attraction, a fine high-bred creature, with straight legs, arching neck, and gentle face marked on the forehead with a pure white star. Landseer exerted his utmost skill in reproducing the texture of the glossy hide. Its beautiful sheen is more striking by contrast with the s.h.a.ggy hair of the donkey. It was a clever thought to place this plebeian little beast beside the aristocratic, high-spirited horse.

The donkey bends his head in a deprecating way below Betty's handsome neck, and the horse permits the companions.h.i.+p of an inferior with gentle tolerance. There is something very appealing about the donkey, a patient little beast of burden, meekly bearing his saddle. The bloodhound shows no little curiosity as to the shoeing process, as if it were something new to her. She sits on her haunches, thrusting her head forward, the long ears drooping, the sensitive nose sniffing the strange odors.

Among these dumb companions the blacksmith feels himself surrounded by friends. He is a lover of pets, as we see by the birdcage hanging in the window. His st.u.r.dy frame looks equal to the demands of his trade, which are in fact very laborious. It is grimy work, and only the roughest clothes can be worn. A big leather ap.r.o.n with a cut down the middle is, as it were, his badge of office. Our farrier does his work with conscientious earnestness, concentrating all his thought and energy upon each blow of the hammer. The task completed, he will take an honest pride in the good piece of work he has done for Betty.

It is interesting to know that old Betty's owner was Mr. Jacob Bell, an intimate friend and business adviser of Landseer.

III

SUSPENSE

A wounded knight has been brought home to his castle, and a line of blood-stains on the floor shows where he was carried through the hall to the room beyond. The family and servants press after, the door is closed, and the favorite hound is shut out in the hall alone. Only the meaningless murmur of voices, broken perhaps by the groans of his master, tells what is going on within. It is a moment of suspense, and the dog waits with drooping head, and eyes fixed mournfully on the barrier which separates him from the object of his devotion.[3] So alert is every sense that at the slightest touch upon the door he will spring forward and push his way in.

[Footnote 3: A similar situation is described in the story of _Bob, Son of Battle_, where the shepherd dog waits in suspense outside the sickroom of his mistress.]

It is some such story as this which the painter tells us in the picture called Suspense.[4] Every detail is full of meaning to the imagination. The heavy door, studded with great nails, calls to mind the old Norman castle; the gauntlets on the table and the plume on the floor suggest the armor of the mediaeval knight. The picture is like an ill.u.s.tration for one of Scott's novels. Our knight may have been wounded, like Ivanhoe, in a tournament. The scene of the lists rises before us, the opposite lines of mounted knights charging upon each other with their lances, the shock of the meeting, the unhorsing of many, the blows of the battle axe upon helmet and coat of mail, and finally the entrance of the squires to bear their wounded masters to a place of safety.

[Footnote 4: A pretty imaginary story is woven about the picture in Sarah Tytler's little book, _Landseer's Dogs and their Stories_.]

The hound had no part in the sports of the tourney, but the scene of his glory was the chase. When the knight went forth for a day's hunting in the forest, the whole pack went with him, waking the woodland echoes with their baying. Some familiar verses tell of

"The deep-mouthed bloodhound's heavy bay Resounding up the rocky way, And faint from farther distance borne, The echo of the hoof and horn."

The dogs' delicate sense of smell enables them to track game with unerring precision. It seems impossible to exhaust their perseverance or their wind, and it is surely not their fault if a hunting-party returns unsuccessful.

While hunting brings out the more ferocious elements of the nature, the hound is on the other hand capable of an affectionate devotion which makes him a valued friend of man. The English country gentleman is a lover of dogs and horses, and knows how to appreciate their good qualities. Out of the many animals in his kennels one dog is usually a chosen favorite which becomes his master's inseparable companion.

Such a favorite is the dog of our picture, and we like to fancy that the knight is worthy the love of so n.o.ble a creature.

[Ill.u.s.tration: John Andrew & Son, Sc.

SUSPENSE _Kensington Museum, London_]

The hound is represented in his best and n.o.blest aspect: all the forces of his being seem concentrated in loving anxiety. It is as if suffering brought out in the dog's nature those higher qualities by which he is allied to human beings. His countenance is intensely expressive yet thoroughly canine. Every line of the drawing brings out the dog's character,--the squat of the haunches, the position of the legs far apart, the rising of the hair on the crest of the back, the droop of the head, the flattening of the tail.

The broad collar with the ring is a symbol of his subjection. The privilege of man's friends.h.i.+p has cost the dog his freedom. To offset the hours of delightful companions.h.i.+p with his friendly master are the weary times when he must tug impotently at the chain which keeps him within the castle enclosure.

It has been said that Landseer looked upon most animals with the eyes of the artist, the poet, and the natural historian, but the dog alone he painted as a friend. Our picture is good evidence of the truth of the statement. Every resource of the painter's art was lavished upon his favorite subject with the loving care that one gives only to a friend.

The ma.s.sive size of the dog is seen by comparing the figure with the height of the table and the door. The great creature practically fills the canvas. The pose is so finely conceived, the figure itself so admirably "modelled," to use the critic's phrase, that it seems almost like a work of sculpture. The light and shadow are carefully studied. The light seems to come from some source at the right, bringing out strongly the expressiveness of the dog's face. Landseer, we are told, was fond of introducing into his pictures a bit of sparkling metal. Here the reflected light on the gauntlets, like that on the spurs beside the King Charles Spaniels and on the helmet near the Sleeping Bloodhound, adds an effective touch to the composition.

Suspense has been a popular favorite among Landseer's works, and is one of the pictures referred to in the Memorial Verses published in "Punch" after the artist's death. This is the stanza describing it:--

"The lordly bloodhound with p.r.i.c.ked ear, And scent suspicious, watches for his lord At the locked door, from whose sill, trickling clear, The blood bespeaks surprise and treacherous sword."

IV

THE MONARCH OF THE GLEN

An annual visit to the Scottish Highlands was one of Landseer's pleasures. It was here that he learned to know the habits of the deer, the subject of many of his n.o.blest paintings. His first journey to this region was as a young man of twenty-two, in company with a friend and fellow painter, Leslie. An incident of the excursion was a visit to Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott. The painter and the novelist had much in common in their attachment to dogs, their fondness for vigorous out-of-door exercise, and their love of nature.

Landseer was deeply impressed with the rugged grandeur of the Highland scenery. Especially was his imagination stirred by the mountain solitudes, the haunt of the deer, which Scott had described in his poems. A favorite resort was the valley of Glencoe, a singularly wild and romantic spot where a long narrow ravine is shut in between almost perpendicular hills.

The painter first made the acquaintance of the deer after the ordinary manner of the sportsman. For sport in itself, however, he cared little or nothing; the great attraction of hunting was the chance to study the action of animals. His friends laughed at him for a poor shot, but his true weapon was the pencil, not the gun. One day, while deerstalking, just as a magnificent shot came his way, the gillies were astonished to have the painter thrust the gun into their hands, and hastily take out his sketch-book. It was the life and not the death of the animal in which he was chiefly interested.

The Monarch of the Glen seems to be a picture caught in just this way.

The very life and character of the animal are transferred to the canvas as by a snap shot of the camera. The stag has heard some strange sound or scented some new danger, and, mounting a hill, looks abroad to see if all is well. The responsibility of the herd is his, and he has a tender care for the doe and the young deer. He must always be on the alert.

His att.i.tude reminds one of Scott's "antlered monarch" in "The Lady of the Lake," which

"Like crested leader proud and high Tossed his beamed frontlet to the sky; A moment gazed adown the dale, A moment snuffed the tainted gale."

It is with a proud sense of owners.h.i.+p that the monarch surveys his domain. With head erect he seems to defy the whole world of sportsmen.

Behind him are piled the ma.s.sive crags of the mountain peaks, with the mist rising from the valley below. This fog, so dangerous to the traveller, is a blessing to the deer, tempering the heat of the summer sun and hiding him from his enemy, man. It appealed to Landseer on account of its weird sublimity, and he liked to get the effect of it in his landscapes, especially when illumined by a burst of sunlight.

[Ill.u.s.tration: From an Engraving by Thomas Landseer, John Andrew & Son, Sc.

THE MONARCH OF THE GLEN]

The Monarch of the Glen is a splendid specimen of his kind. The spreading horns above his head are like the boughs of an oak tree. We know from the number of branches that he is seven years old. The horns are developed at the end of the first year, and every year thereafter are displaced by new ones with an additional branch.

The large ears are held erect as if the animal could fairly see with them. His fine eyes scan the horizon with a searching glance which misses nothing. His sensitive nose detects from afar the approach of any stranger to his fastnesses. The end is always moist, in order that he may catch the way of the wind, as the hunter catches it on his moistened finger. His neck is encircled with a heavy mane, falling in a broad band, like the collar of a royal order. His body is rather short, thick, and round.

The legs, which are seen only half their length, seem strangely disproportioned to the weight of so heavy an annual. That the deer's horns are so large and his legs so small are two perpetual mysteries about this wild creature. An amusing fable by La Fontaine relates how a stag, gazing at his reflection in the water, deplores the awkwardness of his legs, and admires the beauty of his antlers. A moment later, fleeing for his life, he learns the value of his despised legs, while the boasted horns impede his progress by catching in the branches of the forest trees.

The speed of which the deer is capable is indeed marvelous. He adds to his power of fleet running a wonderful trick of bounding through s.p.a.ce. It is said that a deer may leap six or eight feet into the air, and cover in a single bound a distance of eighteen to thirty feet. The leap is performed without apparent haste or effort, the animal rising gracefully into the air by a tiny toe-touch of the dainty hoofs. It is a sort of wingless flying.[5] The deer is besides a strong swimmer, and lakes and streams are no obstacles in his way.

[Footnote 5: See _The Trail of the Sandhill Stag_, by Ernest Seton-Thompson, from which is also drawn the information about the deer's moist nose.]

As we look into the n.o.ble face of the Monarch of the Glen, we feel a sense of kins.h.i.+p with him, like the experience of Yan in the beautiful story of "The Sandhill Stag." It was after following the trail of the deer many days that the youth at last came suddenly face to face with the object of his desire, "a wondrous pair of bronze and ivory horns, a royal head, a n.o.ble form behind it." As they gazed into each other's eyes, every thought of murder went out of Yan's heart, and gave place to a strange sense of fellows.h.i.+p. "Go now without fear," he said, "but if only you would come sometimes and look me in the eyes, and make me feel as you have done to-day, you would drive the wild beast wholly from my heart, and then the veil would be a little drawn, and I should know more of the things that wise men have prayed for knowledge of."