Landseer, Sir Edwin Henry [key], 1802–73, English animal painter. The best known of all animal painters, he is especially remembered for his sentimental, humanized paintings of dogs. He was an infant prodigy and one of the most prolific and famous artists of his period. Innumerable engravings were made of such works as The Stag at Bay and Dignity and Impudence. Landseer rendered his great talent insipid by pandering to a taste that favored dainty, saccharine morality paintings. His work had enormous significance in popularizing the anthropomorphic concept of animals.
See study by J. Manson (1902).
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