JOSEPH WOLF, ANIMAL PAINTER.*

THE first feeling experienced after reading Mr. Palmer's admirably written book is a feeling of pity for the public to whom Joseph Wolf is unknown, the man whose motto is on the title-page, " We see distinctly only what we know thoroughly,"—a motto every artist might adopt. The son of Samuel Palmer has adopted it, and the book has evidently been undertaken as a labour of love. The author would fain force us to centre our thoughts round the man who by his painstaking work and marvellous patience has illustrated some of our best natural-history books for us, and has given us an insight into the beautiful life of falcons, eagles, and wild animals as no artist in the world has ever done before. Overcoming all difficulties, he has triumphed against fate, and his genius still shines as a star in the night-sky. Sir Edwin Landseer said that he considered Wolf to be, without excep- tion, the best all-round animal painter that ever lived,—a no mean critic.

Joseph Wolf was born in 1820 at Moerz, a little village about fifteen miles from Coblenz. His father was a farmer whose horizon was distinctly limited, his highest ambition for his eldest-born being that he might become a respectable clod-hopper. Joseph, having fallen under the spell of Nature, decreed otherwise, and found it impossible to follow in his father's footsteps. He was called a little "bird-fool ; "

• Joseph Wolf, Animal Painter. By A. H. Palmer. London : Longm'na and Co.

but, undaunted, he spent day after day in the ravines of the Moselle, and in the flat, open fields, studying bird-life and holding a close communion with the great teacher, Nature. Very early in his life he began to put his knowledge into form, and with a pair of scissors cut out birds and animals to paste on a window. At school his power of drawing was observed, and having made some brushes for himself out of quills and hairs from a stone martin's

he began to paint. To his marvellous power of observation he owes the correctness in the attitudes of his subjects. At the age of sixteen his father gave him up as hopeless, and apprenticed him for three years to a firm of lithographers at Coblerz, then he returned home and worked at a set of miniatures of birds, which proved to be his stepping-stone to fame. After a time he settled down at Darmstadt, and began the illustrations for Riippell's Birds of East Africa. Here his "fierce perseverance" surmounted every difficulty, and two books of measurement which he compiled at the time —one of birds and one of mammals—show his love of detail and accuracy. Fifty-eight measurements of each species of bird is given, subdivided under such headings as "Spread wings from above "—" from below ; " " Feet, tail," &c. From tedious detail he turned with a sigh of relief to Nature, and he wandered in the country seeking knowledge. " Some wood- cutters," we read, " as they felled a neighbouring copse, saw a woodcock fly off her eggs. The forester on duty told Wolf that the bird had returned, in spite of the destruction of the cover. Sketch-book in hand, and trembling all over with excitement, the artist crept up, sat down by inches,'

and worked, as he says, like blazes' till he had secured careful drawings from several points of view." It was his power of concentration and knowledge of feathers that made this possible. He tells us " the light stripes on the backs of the birds of this genus are each composed of parti-coloured feathers; the light webs of which joined together form the

stripes when the plumage is in perfect order Pro- fessed ornithological artists make the mistake of representing the stripe as formed of one line of feathers." In 1848 Wolf migrated to London, and there he is still working amongst us

in his studio at Primrose Hill. Having on his arrival obtained work at the British Museum, the tussle between art and science began. He was a naturalist, yet " the love of art—the desire to revel in its mysteries, and to grapple with all its most alluring difficulties, were burning." Then, again, he says, " The prejudice of artists against natural history has stood in my way more than anything in England." This is the reason he has not exhibited more. He desired his birds to be individual birds, and his wild animals to have all the freedom of liberty. After a fortnight in London, Wolf was introduced to John Gould, whom he describes as " a shrewd old fellow, but the most uncouth man I ever knew," and shrewd the author proves him to be, and the opposite

to Wolf in every way. Gould at once made use of the German animal painter, employing him to illustrate many of

his works, of which The Birds of Great Britain is the best known ; and he seems to have been most unscrupulous in his method of obtaining extra sketches and skins and specimens for copy. The following is perhaps the most characteristic of any :—

" Dr. Senertzoff came to England with a letter of introduction

to another well known ornithologist This gentleman, who shall be called G.,' and who knew Gould intimately, offered the use of some empty cabinets in his room for the reception of the Doctor's collection of skins rare species from Turkestan.

The offer was gladly accepted, and that evening the

more important birds were stowed away. Next morning it occurred to G. that perhaps the skins might be interfered with, so locked the cabinets and put the key in his pocket. On his return he found the Doctor awaiting him, who said he had an amusing tale to tell. Mr. Gould had called, and had sent up a message that he particularly wanted to see Dr. Severtzoff if he was in the house :—‘ He did come up,' said the Doctor with his strong foreign accent, ' and he did talk to me, and did flatter me in every way. He did tell me that I was a naturalist greater than Cuvier or Linnaeus, and I did begin to think what little bit of cheese I should drop from my bill. He then did tell me he hear that I have with me all my rare birds of Turkestan, and that it was in the interests of science necessary that he should borrow and examine them. I did tell him that the birds were in the house, and he express himself most charmed, and did ask me if I would at once let him look at them. I then did go to the cabinets, but I found that you, clever man ! had taken away the key. That minute his face change. He go straight down the stairs, and at every step he do say, ' Damn Mr. G. "

Wolf andi Gould visited Norway together in 1856,—the one with his drawing materials and gun, the other with his skinning tools; fieldfares being one great object of their journey. Soon after this, Mr. Mitchell, the artist, introduced Wolf to Lord Derby and his menageries and museum at Knowsley Hall. Here the great animal-painter took up his abode, and worked amongst the llamas, alpacas, guanacos, wild- asses, zebras, and antelopes, taking the air occasionally, let us hope, in a carriage drawn by a tandem " in which a mule be- tween Burchell's zebra and an ass was driven." Then Wolf began taking:commissions for different publishers, and his life up to the present may be summed up in the three words, " Work, work, work." "An artist must be a student all his life," he says ; and in everything he undertook it was his determined resolution to be accurate, thorough, and true. Every year he took a holiday, and journeyed to his native village and studied nature afresh. It was inevitable that the gun should form one of the artist's accessories in his rambles—specimens had to be obtained for fuller and more detailed observation— but Mr. Palmer tells us that he abhorred sport for the sake of slaughter, his great love of animals making the pastime detestable to him, to illustrate which he painted a splendid picture, which is to be found in this volume, portraying the murder of a lioness, two motherless cubs at play in the fore- ground. This he ironically calls "Sport."

Mr. Palmer, in his intense enthusiasm for his friend, refuses to compare him with other great animal-painters. Sir Edwin Landseer never had to swim against the tide in his boyhood. His father, a well-known engraver, seeing the child's love for art and animals, encouraged him in every way, and taught him to sketch horses and cattle in the fields with little more than baby hands. He was no " bird-fool " to be jeered at and ridiculed ; but in some ways he never neared perfection as the German lad has, though his pictures are more popular. One great distinction between their works is in their treatment of subjects. The amount of human sentiment and expression that Landseer gives, the human element which he infuses into his works, and which rightly or wrongly appeals to our heirts, is lacking in Wolf's pictures. Wolf is a naturalist, and prefers the birds and mammals to have their own expressions; he understands the mystery of art, too, as Landseer never could. You may look at one of his moon- light forest-scenes and the eye wanders away behind the giant trees, tracing footsteps in the snow, with a feeling of wonder into what impenetrable depths it may lead. Landseer again appeals to us through the domestic animals. Wolf would have us ever soar to barren mountain peaks, and he gives us his picture called " Solitary," full of weird woe and desolation. A captious critic might be tempted to say that in the end Mr. Palmer's book becomes a descriptive catalogue of the artist's works ; but we forgive the author, for the descriptions are fascinating, and we see the pictures for ourselves. The illustrations form a beautiful addition to the work, and the volume should be found in every library, or lying on the table in the oaken hall, to tell us of our greatest living animal-painter,—the "poet-painter," as we may truth- fully designate him.