ANIMAL LIFE IN ITALIAN PAINTING 



to mention and condemn the enthusiasm of a painter 

 for animals as an indication that such enthusiasm 

 existed, even sometimes to an exaggerated degree. 



Certainly the Italians did not set out to paint 

 animals in the spirit of Landseer. We shall not find 

 A Distijiguished Member of the Humane Society, Redcap, 

 or Dignity and l772pudence — paintings in which some 

 phase of the life of civilised or humanised animals is 

 the sole object of the picture. 



We shall not even find, with rare exceptions, that 

 they form the main or specialised study of the artist and 

 condition all his work, as in the case of Hondecoeter, 

 Troyon, Paul Potter, J. M. Swan, or Briton Riviere. It 

 is rather in the work of such an artist as Millais 

 that we can find a comparison.^ A curiosity about 

 nature and a love of it, constantly at the back of the 

 mind, breaks in and will not be denied, whatever the 

 subject. 



Three lines of influence seem to be traceable, either 

 alone or in combination, in almost every painting we 

 shall examine. 



First, the very quaint writer, or group of writers, 



^ Ruskin, in a letter to Mr. Oswald Crawford, spoke of his " power of 

 animal painting" as "wholly unrivalled in its kind." Millais' dogs and 

 cats, birds and lizards, are painted with genuine understanding of their 

 nature, as well as with sure knowledge of form and texture. See M. H, 

 Spielmann, Millais and his Works, 1898. 



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