File:Studies in pictures; an introduction to the famous galleries (1907) (14589736539).jpg

Identifier: studiesinpicture00vand (find matches)
Title: Studies in pictures; an introduction to the famous galleries
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Van Dyke, John Charles, 1856-1932
Subjects: Painting -- Study and teaching Painting
Publisher: New York : C. Scribner's sons
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ting. Each animal of the fieldor of the forest has a distinct peculiarity whichshows not only in its physical contour, but in itshabit<^dTsp6^rtionj--uiQScinents; and if these qualitiesbe truly given there will be a beauty about the beast.Consider the frightened, apprehensive look of thehyena, his bunched body and restless, sliulHing tread;the sharp keen look of the fox, his cocked ears, openmouth and light footfall; the long, slim nose andbriglit eyes of the Scotch stag hound, his spare bodyand great loping spring; and almost in the samefamily, notice the distinct nature of eacli kind. Itis the clumsiness of the elephant, the ferocity of thetiger, the docility and mild indolence of the cowthat in each case makes for the nature of-44ie beast.Every species of the animal kingdom, whether do-mestic or wild, has a distinct.xhanrctcr marking itapart; and whether tljat^hTrnrct«r,comes to us in artwith weakness or force is just in proportion as itis discerned and recorded by the painter.
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liJ o XX THE ANIMAL IN ART 119 Now it is wortli while noticing that animal char-acter may be of two kinds. There is the true char-acter given animals by nature; and there is a falsecharacter occasionally given them by men when theyseek to poetize or paint them. The true characterI take to be just what the name animal implies.We speak of the brute creation, and what do wemean by that if not something distinctly lower thanhumanity, a something not of mental, moral, or aes-thetic nature, but of physical and animal organiza-tion? Without either the logical or the emotionalfaculty to any great extent, animal character islargely a result of physical conditions—a somethingin direct opposition to man, whose physical nature issupposed to be controlled by his- reasoning powers. I am aware that there are cases of exceptional in-telligence in animals, but because a dog may betrained to walk on his hind legs or a pig to playcards is no argument for the inference that it is thenature of

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