1802 -1873 · Victorian and Scottish Highlands wildlife painting

Heroic deer, expressive dogs, precise anatomy and Highland landscapes make Landseer the most famous wildlife painter of the Victorian era.

Edwin Henry Landseer was born in London in 1802 into a family of engravers. A child prodigy, he exhibited at the Royal Academy from the age of thirteen and studied with Benjamin Robert Haydon, while directly observing animals and their anatomy. His talent for rendering coat, posture and character quickly attracted an aristocratic clientele. From 1824, his regular stays in the Scottish Highlands nourished hunting, deer and dog scenes where the landscape became as important as the action. Landseer readily attributed human emotions and roles to animals, associating humor, loyalty, mourning or dignity with very safe observation. Queen Victoria's favorite, whom he accompanied to Scotland and to whom he taught etching, he painted his animals and those of the court. The Monarch of Glen, exhibited in 1851, transformed a deer into a romantic hero dominating his territory. Ennobled in 1850, Landseer also designed the four bronze lions of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square. He died in 1873 after an end to his career marked by illness. The selection "Edwin Landseer" notably compared The Monarch of Glen and Dignity and Impudence. His reading favors the story.

Landseer observes the animal with an anatomistic accuracy, then gives it the moral presence of a novel character.