Page:How to show pictures to children (IA howtoshowpictur00hurl).pdf/136

 showing the Scotch collie at his proper business of keeping the flock within bounds, he represents him grief-stricken beside the shepherd’s coffin. In such subjects as Dignity and Impudence, and Jack in Office, the dog assumes an almost human pose which appeals to the sense of humor as a sort of caricature. This method tends to sentimentalize and overhumanize the dog, instead of representing him in his true function in the animal kingdom. But even if we count out all the pictures in which the painter catered to the popular anecdotic taste, there still remain a sufficiently large number beyond such criticism, to give him high rank as an artist. His technical facility is above praise: he reproduced cleverly the texture of the hair and the brightness of the eye, and had a fine sense of pose. The deer was practically his original discovery. Studying this noble creature in the Scottish Highlands, he interpreted his life with great fidelity and sympathy.

Rosa Bonheur’s animal art covered a much larger range of subjects. She lived surrounded by a perfect menagerie of pets, ministering to them with touching devotion through their ailments and old age. Horses, dogs, cattle, deer, and lions were by turns her favorites, both as companions and art subjects. She knew the lion in every stage of his life from the soft cub, like the picture in Bowdoin College, to the old beast whose head was the model of “War.” Though none knew better than she the friendly human side of all animals, she exercised admirable self-restraint in subordinating this clement to the essential animal