6o ANIMAL PAINTERS 



Lord Tankerville was greatly impressed with 

 the artist's ingenuity in utilising flaws on the wall 

 and working them into his picture : — 



Every irregularity in the rough surface was given its 

 significance, and in places where the plaster had holes where 

 nails had been driven in, he transformed the holes into the 

 eyes of his deer : the dark shadow of the cavity gave such 

 transparent depth to the eye, and a mere touch of white upon 

 some prominent edge of it, brought out such brilliancy as no 

 pigment could have equalled. 



" These priceless frescoes " as Lord Tanker- 

 ville truly calls them, were unfortunately destroyed 

 in a fire which occurred at Ardverikie some time 

 afterwards. 



Until well on in the present century artists 

 always mixed their own colours, the convenient 

 system of preparing pigments in tubes ready for 

 use not having been discovered. It is said of 

 Landseer that he was singularly careless about the 

 colours he used. When a vendor of pigments 

 brouoht his wares for trial with the view of sale, 

 he would straightway try the paint on whatever 

 picture he had on his easel at the moment, irre- 

 spective of the fact that he knew absolutely 

 nothing of the visitor and the quality of his goods. 

 These reckless experiments sometimes produced 

 bad ultimate results in the shape of unsightly 

 cracks and fading tints on his canvasses. 



Sporting, by " Nimrod," published in 1S38 by 



