High Life
Not on view
Landseer, a favorite of Queen Victoria (whom he taught to etch) and the most celebrated animal painter of nineteenth-century Britain, made a special subject of dogs with human-seeming personalities. Such anthropomorphism, which Ruskin dubbed "the pathetic fallacy," found admiring audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. Here, a deerhound's haughty, dignified pose seems to suit its aristocratic setting, distinguished by a falconer's glove, a chalice and helmet, and a view onto a crenellated tower. High Life was once thought to depict Sir Walter Scott's dog at Abbotsford House, the author's neo-Gothic estate. In fact, the wholly imaginary scene was designed to contrast with its pendant, Low Life, which shows a terrier in a doorway beside a beer stein and pipe. Based on a painting of 1829 now at Tate Britain.
