This very
feature--the tendency to humanize the brute and make it tell a
story--accounts in large measure for the popularity of Landseer's art.
The work is perhaps correct enough, but the aim of it is somewhat
afield from pure painting. It illustrates the literary rather than the
pictorial. Following Wilkie the most distinguished painter was
Mulready (1786-1863), whose pictures of village boys are well known
through engravings.
[Illustration: FIG. 98.--TURNER. FIGHTING TEMERAIRE. NAT. GAL.
LONDON.]
THE LANDSCAPE PAINTERS: In landscape the English have had something to
say peculiarly their own. It has not always been well said, the
coloring is often hot, the brush-work brittle, the attention to
detail inconsistent with the large view of nature, yet such as it is
it shows the English point of view and is valuable on that account.
Richard Wilson (1713-1782) was the first landscapist of importance,
though he was not so English in view as some others to follow. In
fact, Wilson was nurtured on Claude Lorrain and Joseph Vernet and
instead of painting the realistic English landscape he painted the
pseudo-Italian landscape.
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