Content Background
In order to be prepared to teach this unit, a teacher needs to understand the role of animals in art and the shift that occurred during the Victorian times. While other art images will be discussed, the work of Edwin Landseer and Harrison Weir will be the focus. In conjunction with the shift of the depiction of animals in art, the rise of animal-protection groups, both of which were occurring simultaneously, will be explored. And finally, the work of one woman who made a direct impact on animal treatment laws of the time will be examined.
The Victorian Period and Attitudes towards Animals
The Victorian period ran concurrently with the reign of Queen Victoria, 1837-1901. The art and events that are covered here occurred roughly during this time period. During her reign, Britain was prosperous and relatively peaceful. This was a time seeing a great increase in British power, with expansion of the British colonies in Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia. This period followed and completed the Industrial Revolution in Britain, which was a period of huge cultural change.
In Britain, a number of separate and collective events occurred that began to change Victorian society. The Victorian Age, which has been called the Age of Reform, saw tremendous political, social and cultural transformations. Shaken by the French Revolution, the British opted for reform instead. And this reform, which allowed more men to vote than ever before, also called into play the need for more extensive social reform. People who had never had a voice before now had a voice. The Condition of England question, Dickens and his novels, the Evangelical Christians preaching the moral obligation to improve the human condition, John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, and the rise of literacy, all against the backdrop of the final stages of the Industrial Revolution, were just some of the forces at work. This made for an age of social upheaval and ultimately social change.
In the early nineteenth century, animal protection societies were developed. In 1822, there was the first law created regarding animal cruelty; and just two years later, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which later became the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, was established. This was the first animal protection organization. 3 In addition, there was a shift in the function that some animals played in art. The convergence of these events underscored a shift in Victorian Britain's perception of animals.
During this era, the theory of evolution was also influencing many aspects of life, including the perception of animals. Topics of writing, conversation, and debate at the time included animals' position in the evolutionary chain, their character and capability to feel and express emotion and their relationships, be it as pets or as working servants to people. At this time, the relationship between human and animals became more a central concern. Charles Darwin's ideas of evolution were certainly part of the context of these dialogues, and the ideas about animals were discussed and debated from all sides. 4 Animals in this period were subjects of paintings, sculpture, prints, scientific representations, illustrations in books and magazines, cartoons, and children's books. The subjects of these images range from sensitively painted portraits of dogs, to cartoons of politicians as animals and to centerfold-like reproductions of prize-winning bulls.
Animal Portraiture
Since there has been art, animals have been depicted. They are so ubiquitous that it is challenging to examine the history of this subject matter. The variety of functions that animals serve in art also creates multiple lenses through which to view animal portraiture. Through much of the history of art, animals have served specific purposes. Much of the time, animals were symbols or metaphors, religious expressions or even simple decoration. Rarely was the animal simply the subject "for the subject's sake," that is, until closer to the eighteenth and nineteenth century.
The role of animals in portraits actually began to shift during the mid-eighteenth century. Up until this time, animals in portraits, often dogs, had been used to signify the rank, identity, and status of the person who was in the portrait. These were not meant to depict individual animals but rather to convey information about the person being depicted. But during the eighteenth century, this situation began to change, and dog "semantics" or the use of the dogs as symbols became more open ended and ambiguous. Real pets began to be included, and they would even have their own sittings. These dogs would truly be painted as portraits of unique, individual, and idiosyncratic animals. 5 The dogs would take on a semi-independent or complementary role to the person who was the subject of the painting. It was also during the eighteenth century that portraits of dogs by themselves emerged as an independent genre.
In the Victorian period, the breed of dog itself communicated certain information because there was a hierarchy to the breeds. This hierarchy of different breeds was endlessly examined in breeding manuals and reinforced in dog shows. There was a definite perceived correlation between one's dog's breed and one's class status. It was also a time when people began keeping pets as companions and not just as working animals, something that prior to this time had been done only by the wealthiest of the upper classes. By the mid 1800s, the "Victorian cult of pets was firmly established," so much so that the magazine Punch often published cartoons that made fun of dog owners who dressed their dogs and feed them from the table. 6
Edwin Landseer (1802-1873)
One of the most popular artists of the Victorian period was Edwin Landseer. His work was reproduced in various levels of quality, medium, and price so that almost every house had copies. 7 His iconic images would have been as familiar to Victorians as the Mona Lisa is to us. While Landseer's work is less popular than it was, I believe the students will find it appealing; and if looked at in the light of what was happening in British society, his images can be very powerful. Landseer is most famous for his dog portraits, although he also painted wild animals in some very ruthless depictions. In his dog paintings, Landseer was able to represent the affection and connection between man and dog. According to Diana Donald, Landseer "seemed to penetrate the minds of his subjects as no previous animal painter had done, prompting sympathetic emotions in the viewer, and tacitly reprehending cruelty towards animals in general…. They [his paintings] were emotive moral dramas, in which the mentality of animals, and its relationship to that of humans, were the real subject." 8 Landseer, therefore, invented a new kind of animal art. His dogs were depicted as heroes and saints with their virtues being at least equal to or even excelling those of humans. 9 A good example of this type of art is Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveller. In this painting, a St. Bernard is saving a man who has been partially buried by snow. This was painted in 1820, when Landseer was only eighteen. It clearly depicts the dogs as the heroes, literally saving the man's life.
There was a trend by poets, writers, philosophers, and scientists, to explore animal psychology. Landseer's paintings often had literary allusions, but they also greatly influenced the thinking and writing of the time. They were often reproduced or cited in publications dealing with animal behavior. 10 Classic examples are the hero dog or saint dog, and dogs mourning their dead owners. Perhaps the most famous is The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner, of 1837, in which a collie is sitting next to a draped coffin with his head resting on the coffin. This touching painting clearly depicts the pain and sorrow the animal is feeling at the death of his owner.
In some of Landseer's most famous paintings, dogs demonstrate individual personalities and seem able to have their own emotions and even thoughts. Landseer often did this by contrasting dogs. A wonderful example of this is Dignity and Impudence, a painting with a bloodhound, looking very serious, and a small West Highland Terrier, looking very mischievous. It should not be surprising that Landseer became the painter of the Queen's and the royal family's animals. 11 According to Landseer's obituary, published in the Art Journal in 1873, "his dogs are not mere portraits only, they are thinking, almost rational creatures, wanting only the gift of speech to hold converse with us." 12 My hope is that the students will agree with this assessment, since I certainly do.
Harrison Weir (1824-1906)
While Landseer was perhaps the most famous of animal painters at this time, he certainly wasn't the only one glorifying animals. Harrison William Weir was an author and illustrator who focused his work on animals and birds. He was an adamant supporter of animal welfare and a cat enthusiast. Apprenticed to an engraver, George Braxton, at the age of thirteen, Weir was a prolific artist, painting, engraving, and illustrating, with his work appearing in children's books, periodicals, and natural history books as well as books about poultry. He also wrote extensively, from children's books to manuals on breeding. He founded the first cat show, which he organized at the Crystal Palace in London in 1871, and he was a prominent judge. 13 In 1887, Weir established the National Cat Club and served as its first president and show manager. In his book Our Cats and all about Them, Weir described a variety of breeds, the preferred characteristics in breeding, diseases, and guidelines for judging a cat show. Harrison Weir is considered to be the "father of the cat fancy." 14 In addition to spending a great deal of time writing about cats, he also bred purebred cats.
Weir also used anthropomorphism and endowed his animal subjects with human characteristics. He often depicted animals in clothes, speaking and performing human activities. I believe he is a good counterpoint to Landseer's paintings. Weir was more an illustrator, while Landseer was a fine artist, although I dislike using such delineations in the classroom. Landseer was clearly drawn to dogs, and Weir was a cat person. 15 While Landseer certainly humanized his animals and had animals portrayed in hero- or saint-like roles, he definitely painted his animals with tremendous realism and accuracy. Weir had a much more whimsical style leaning towards illustration, with many of his artworks being prints. Like Landseer, Weir created a number of illustrations showing animals doing good deeds, such as alerting the family to burglars or carrying the reins of a horse back to its owner. 16
The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner and The Old Shepherd's Dog
Both Landseer and Weir created images of shepherd dogs. Landseer's painting is oil on wood done around 1837, and it is in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It is approximately 18" by 24". The art critic, John Ruskin, used Landseer's painting as an example to illustrate his definition of what great art is:
One of the most perfect poems or pictures (I use the words as synonymous) which modern times have seen ... Here the exquisite execution of the glossy and crisp hair of the dog, the bright sharp touching of the green bough beside it, the clear painting of the wood of the coffin and the folds of the blanket, are language -language clear and expressive in the highest degree. But the close pressure of the dog's breast against the wood, the convulsive clinging of the paws, which has dragged the blanket off the trestle, the total powerlessness of the head laid close and motionless upon its folds, the fixed and tearful fall of the eye in its utter hopelessness, the rigidity of repose which marks that there has been no motion nor change in the trance of agony since the last blow was struck on the coffin-lid, the quietness and gloom of the chamber, the spectacles marking the place where the Bible was last closed, indicating how lonely has been the life, how unwatched the departure, of him who is now laid solitary in his sleep; — these are all thoughts — thoughts by which the picture is separated at once from hundreds of equal merit, as far as mere painting goes, by which it ranks as a work of high art, and stamps its author, not as the neat imitator of the texture of a skin, or of the fold of a drapery, but as the Man of Mind. 17
As Ruskin explains, this painting is quite powerful. In addition to the convincing realism of the painting, its expressiveness is very strong. Ruskin is drawn to this painting because of the combination of these two qualities.
Weir's image, executed in 1861, is a wood engraving, 4.75" by 4", and it is from a book of poetry Weir selected and illustrated. Weir's image is printed on the same page as a poem about a shepherd and his dog, written by Peter Pindar. The poem tells of the bond between the two and the death of the dog Tray and later of Corin, the shepherd.
THE OLD SHEPHERD'S DOG
"The old Shepherd's dog, like his master, was grey,
His teeth all departed, and feeble his tongue;
Yet where'er Corin went, he was follow'd by Tray;
Thus happy through life did they hobble along.
When, Fatigued, on the grass the Shepherd would lie,
For a nap in the suncheck - 'midst his slumbers so sweet,
His faithful companion crawl'd constantly nigh,
Placed his head on his lap, or lay down at his feet.
When Winter was hear on the hill and the plain,
And torrents descended, and cold was the wind,
If Corin went forth 'mid the tempests and rain,
Tray scorn'd to be left in the chimney behind.
At length, in the straw Tray made his last bed –
For vain, against Death, is the stoutest endeavor:
To lick Corin's hand he rear'd up his weak head,
Then fell back, closed his eyes, and ah! closed them for ever.
Not long after Tray did the Shepherd remain,
Who oft o'ver his grave with true sorrow would bend:
And, when dying, thus feeble was heard the poor swain:
"O bury me, neighbors, beside my old friend!"18
Anna Sewell and Black Beauty
Having read Black Beauty in a variety of formats, including the novel and various picture-book formats as a child, and having seen the Disney movie several times, I was familiar with the story and its popularity. It wasn't until I began researching the book, however, that I realized I knew nothing of the author. For someone to have written such a famous and widely read novel, one that by 1995 had world wide sales of forty million, while the entire collection of Charles Dickens's work had sold fifty million, raises the question, why is she not known? 19 Should she be known? Is her story one that would be beneficial for this unit? The answer to the last question is a resounding yes.
Anna Sewell was born in 1820 in England to a devote Quaker family. Quakers do not approve of blood sports or any businesses that exploit animals, including using animals for fur or in zoos and circuses. Contemporary Quakers don't think animals should be used for things like cosmetic research, and they are divided on whether they should ever be used for medical research. 20 In addition to her Quaker beliefs, Anna, at the age of fourteen, suffered an injury that permanently handicapped her and caused her pain for the rest of her life. She was caught in a downpour and was running to avoid being soaked. She twisted her ankles badly, which never healed and caused her a severe and life-long handicap. 21 Since walking was a challenge, she drove a carriage and spent a great deal of time with horses.
Anna was ill at the end of her life and wrote the book while basically being confined to her home in her last years. It is a fictional autobiography of a horse, and it is therefore told from the point of view of the horse. It is regarded as the first novel written as an animal autobiography, and its influence is seen in many later writers including Beatrix Potter and many Disney projects. The book also was the start of the pony genre in children's literature. Black Beauty begins with his happy time as a foal, and he is owned by good and bad people through his life, until his retirement. The book was a phenomenal success. Although Anna never saw the full extent of this success, she lived long enough to see a positive response through people's letters to her.
In the nineteenth-century, horses were a necessity of life, but they were often treated horrifically. Just a few of the common practices of the day illustrate this. One practice was to dock the horse's tail—basically cut it off—which resulted in causing tremendous pain. Then for the rest of the horse's life, it would be unable to swish away annoying and biting flies. Another practice was using what is called the bearing rein, which artificially lifted the horse's head and neck into an unnatural position, also causing pain while resulting in impinging on the ability to breath properly and ultimately causing serious respiratory problems. Both of these practices were to make the horse look better—better, that is, according to the ideas of the time. In addition to a disregard for the pain or discomfort caused to horses by these practices, horses were often overworked to the point of collapse, starved, and even beaten to death.
Anna, who had always felt empathy and compassion for horses, read an essay by Horace Bushnell, "Essay on Animals," in 1863. In this essay, Bushnell argued that humans were created to follow God's will and animals to follow humans' will and happily serve humans and that it was incumbent on humans to treat them well. This inspired Anna to "feel it was worth a great effort to try, a least, to bring the thoughts of men more in harmony with the purposes of God on this subject." 22 Anna hoped that her book, written from the point of view of the horse, would make people change how they perceived horses, from simply beasts of burden to feeling, sympathetic animals that should be treated decently.
Anna began writing Black Beauty in 1871, but as her health deteriorated, she began in 1876 to dictate the story to her mother. It was published in 1878, and Anna died only five months after the publication. It is considered to be the book that has had the greatest effect on the treatment of animals in the history of publication. 23 The book changed public attitudes and ultimately led to legislation banning the use of the bearing rein. This was was enacted to reduce the suffering of horses caused by humans.
In the time of Anna Sewell, society was very unequal. Abject poverty existed right next to excessive wealth and privilege. But the horse crossed economic lines and was used in a multitude of ways by a large percentage of the population. But how they were treated depended on the individuals who owned them. Anna had a strong personal relationship with her favorite pony, and she often spoke to it as she would to a person. Giving Black Beauty human thought process, even though he was an animal, was an original concept. This is a great part of what makes this book still resonate with readers today as much as it did in the 1800s. Black Beauty had strong friendships with other horses, showing courage, perseverance, and the power of kindness. The message was intended for adults, and not just children, and still today is appropriate for generations to share together. Soon after the book was published in the UK, a pirated copy was brought to the US, and within two years a million copies had been sold here. This phenomenon was not unlike that of Uncle Tom's Cabin, written by another female author, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in 1852, to a warm reception in both the U.S. and in England. What one did for the slave, the other did for the horse; in other words, they both opened the door to human empathy towards their subjects. 24
Comments: