Art For Animals: J. Keri Cronin

Art for Animals
J. Keri Cronin
Published by Penn State University Press
Cronin, J. Keri.
Art for Animals: Visual Culture and Animal Advocacy, 1870–1914.
Penn State University Press, 2018.
Project MUSE.muse.jhu.edu/book/58829.
For additional information about this book

https://muse.jhu.edu/book/58829
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1
EDUCATE THEM ARTISTICALLY
Perhaps it all started with a picture, a simple watercolor painting hanging on

the bedroom wall of a young girl named Angela Burdett. Burdett, who later
in life would be known as the Baroness Burdett-Coutts and as a prominent
champion for nonhuman animals in her role with the RSPCA, cherished a
picture painted by Henry Bernard Chalon that hung in her childhood bed-
room. The painting was a gift from her father, and, as Arthur Moss notes in
his history of the RSPCA, “the painter would have been pleased to know his
picture, coupled with the instruction on the care of animals that her father
gave her, had influenced her mind” (fig. 5).1
Chalon was a well-known animal painter in Britain during the late eigh-
teenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the picture in question “depicted
a rural roadside spring and cattle-trough, with two horses and a dog quench-
ing their thirst, a boy with his faithful dog tending some sheep, with a village
church and beautiful mountains filling up the background.” This tranquil
scene of a rural idyll may not be the first image that leaps to mind when
we think of the connections between art and animal advocacy, but it has
been credited as an important influence on young Angela Burdett because
“it touched the tender sensibilities of the child, and aided in fostering in
her youthful mind a love for the animal creation.” This connection between
viewing art and treating animals with kindness is a recurring theme in the
literature of early animal advocacy. Chalon’s painting was not made with
any reform, educational, or advocacy agenda in mind. In fact, as one com-
mentator noted, “the painter little thought of the influence which in after
28 Art for Animals
Fig. 5 Sir Francis Burdett and

His Little Girl. Published in the
Band of Mercy Advocate, June
1879. Image © The British Library
Board.
years would be indirectly felt through this work of art.”2 And yet a direct
connection has been made between this image and the advocacy work for
which Angela Burdett would become famous later in her life.
That Chalon’s painting did not originally have any connection to animal
advocacy work is an important reminder that the processes by which mean-
ing is derived from an image are complex and not static. Throughout the his-
tory of animal advocacy, as we shall see in the pages that follow, images have
often been taken out of their original context and repurposed for education
and reform efforts. Further, as with the Chalon painting, the meanings a
viewer may associate with a specific picture may be quite different from the
meaning the artist originally intended for the piece. This is as true today as
it was in Burdett-Coutts’s time.
Burdett-Coutts became well known as a high-profile friend of animals
and supporter of animal advocacy causes.3 Among other roles, she served as
the president of the Ladies’ Committee of the RSPCA, an organization that
she had long supported.4 She also funded a memorial statue and drinking
Educate Them Artistically 29
fountain to honor Greyfriars Bobby in Edinburgh, and was “a generous con-

tributor” to the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Associ-
ation, which was formed in 1859 to provide fresh, clean drinking water for
both people and horses in the city of London.5
The Band of Mercy Advocate, a publication aimed at teaching children in
Britain to be kind to animals, reproduced Chalon’s painting alongside a story
about Burdett-Coutts in its June 1879 issue. The editors found “much plea-
sure in giving our readers a reduced engraving from this favourite picture,
which now has a place of special honour in her ladyship’s gallery.” By featur-
ing this story and image from Burdett-Coutts’s childhood, the Band of Mercy
Advocate was not just sharing an interesting story about a very public figure.
Rather, the editors were actively encouraging parents who might be reading
the magazine with their children to think about the role of art in the raising
of a kind, compassionate, and generous child: “We hope that this pleasing
testimony to the value of a picture in a child’s bedroom will induce many par-
ents to follow the good example of Sir Francis Burdett by decorating the walls
of bedrooms and nurseries with instructive engravings and paintings such as
will promote in the youthful mind a love of animals and birds.” The editors
reasoned that if parents provided their children with appropriate art to look
at, there was a good chance that those children would grow up to be kind and
humane citizens. The editors also noted that many different images would
be appropriate in this context, and that “parents of the present day possess
advantages which were then unknown to Sir Francis Burdett. The splendid
works by Sir Edwin Landseer, Harrison Weir, R. A. Ansdell, Edwin Doug-
las, and others, were then unknown.”6 This connection between viewing art
and subsequent kindness to animals was a central component of many late
nineteenth- and early twentieth-century animal advocacy campaigns. As we
shall see, work by the artists mentioned in the magazine became part of the
iconography of animal advocacy during this period.
This chapter serves as a framework for the remaining chapters of this
book in that it sets up dominant ideas about how art and visual culture could
be used as tools of education and reform by considering things like which
artists and images were especially favored by those in the animal advocacy
movement, as well as broader ideas about how images could educate and
“civilize.” In some cases, like that of Angela Burdett-Coutts, the association
between art and kindness toward animals was rather loose; a chance encoun-
ter with an image was credited with setting someone on the path of kind-
ness. In other cases, there was a more formal, concerted effort to bring art
30 Art for Animals
to situations where kindness to animals was actively taught and fostered.

For example, humane education programs taught as part of school curricula,
and community outreach and education programs, frequently incorporated
art and art making into their lesson plans. Exhibits, lantern slide shows,
and, later, films were also used in conjunction with meetings held by groups
such as the Band of Mercy. Books and periodicals focusing on humane edu-
cation were richly illustrated, often with reproductions of some of the most
famous animal pictures of the day. Reformers working on behalf of animals
during this era placed significance on art and other visual material, and in
the animal advocacy literature we find frequent references to the importance
of the arts in cultivating “kind” and “humane” behavior. The arts were seen
as an essential aspect of educational campaigns aimed at making the world
a kinder, gentler place for all species.
FAVORI T E AR T IS T S
There is, therefore, a long history of art being used in this sort of educational
role when it comes to the treatment of nonhuman animals, and within this
framework, specific artworks were used over and over again. Animal advo-
cacy groups in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had their
favorite artists and works of art. It comes as no surprise that these images
featured nonhuman animals, but the selection of specific images points to a
sophisticated understanding of how imagery could be used to convey ideas
about the relationships between human and nonhuman animals in the mod-
ern era. Certain artists and artworks were reused often, and were sometimes
recontextualized in different campaigns or geographical locations.
Harrison Weir’s images, for instance, were frequently used in ani-
mal advocacy campaigns at the end of the nineteenth century. Weir,
described as an “English fancier, animal lover, naturalist, author, artist,
and poet,” became known for his images of animals, and advocacy groups
were quick to point out that his artwork did much to “engender a love
for the brute creation.” On the occasion of Weir’s death, the editors of
the Journal of Zoophily, an American antivivisection publication, urged
animal welfare advocates to take a moment to reflect on “how much our
humble friends are indebted to him.”7
The work of Sir Edwin Landseer was especially favored by those working
in animal advocacy during this period. He was celebrated as the “Raphael of
animal painters” and praised for his ability to “endow his subjects with an
exuberance of vitality and a bountifulness of intelligence which a less ecstatic
genius would not have dreamt of.”8 While artists throughout history have
painted nonhuman animals, what made Landseer so popular and such a
favorite of animal advocates was his ability to convey a sense of individuality
in the subjects he painted. In Landseer’s work, nonhuman animals were not
decorative details; instead, the viewer was asked to consider each dog, cat,
monkey, squirrel, or deer that Landseer painted as an individual sentient
being capable of complex emotional, social, and intellectual experiences that
were not much different from those of human viewers. As one reviewer
noted, Landseer gave “to his fourfooted friends, turn by turn, an astonish-
ing individuality. . . . It is not as if we had merely strolled into the paddock,
or into the farmyard, but as if we were there brought face to face with the
inner entities of their respective occupants.”9 In this context, the repro-
duction and circulation of well-known Landseer imagery became part of a
larger dialogue about the ways in which different kinds of animals (including
humans) shared traits and characteristics, a dialogue that was intensified
in the wake of Charles Darwin’s theories about the commonalities among
species.10 When Landseer’s images were reproduced in the context of animal
advocacy, they stood as important visual reminders that the certainty with
which distinctions between humans and other animals could be made was
up for debate.
By the end of the nineteenth century, Landseer’s paintings were widely
reproduced and easily recognized. Over the course of his career, more than
one hundred engravers were commissioned to create reproductions of his
paintings, resulting in what one biographer has termed a “thriving indus-
try.”11 His obituary in the Times remarked that “his paintings are well known
in the household of every educated man through the length and breadth of
the land.” The Times reminded readers of the significance of printmaking
technologies in the popularization of Landseer’s art, stating that his paint-
ings of dogs were “well known to the world by the engravings of them.”12
The obituary in the Illustrated Review went even further: “among all the
great artists who have ever lived, Landseer has owed more during his own
lifetime than any other who could be named to the friendly and power-
ful co-operation of the art of the engraver. . . . It can hardly be a matter
for surprise that Landseer’s name should have become a household word,
or that his works should have known an ever-widening circle of popular-
ity.”13 In other words, when animal welfare advocates reproduced Landseer’s
32 Art for Animals
paintings, they could be sure that readers would recognize them. As Diana
Donald has noted, Landseer’s animal paintings “were almost universally
familiar to the artist’s contemporaries, and . . . they have never quite lost
that familiarity to the public at large.”14 Another obituary argued that his art
had shaped the public perception of animals: he “had the gift of controlling,
directing, and even forming the popular thought, the popular imagination,
and the popular affection.”15
Landseer’s animal images were not originally created for advocacy pur-
poses. Landseer certainly was fond of animals, and most of the biographies
about him recite details from his childhood that foreshadowed the connec-
tion with animals for which he would later become famous. Campbell Lennie
writes, “almost as soon as he could walk, he was lifted into fields beside
domestic animals and encouraged to draw them.”16 Further, as Diana Don-
ald has noted, in some of Landseer’s early work we see “a series of morally
charged paintings and etchings of suffering animals.”17 Later in life, Landseer
became an outspoken critic of cruel practices toward nonhuman animals,
cropping dogs’ ears or tying them up for long periods of time, for example.18
Landseer agreed to serve as vice president of the RSPCA in 1869 and was
asked to testify in cruelty cases, but he was otherwise not directly affiliated
with formal animal advocacy efforts.19 Landseer was not directly associated
with most of the advocacy groups that would later repurpose his images
for their campaign material, as most of them were formed after the artist’s
death in 1873. His artwork, however, would be eagerly adopted by many
organizations working within the related frameworks of animal welfare,
animal rights, antivivisection, and humane education. The appropriation
and recirculation of these images, then, became central to their use in the
context of animal advocacy during this period.
Despite Landseer’s limited direct involvement in animal advocacy orga-
nizations, the popular discourse surrounding the artist credited him with
achieving one of the primary objectives of animal advocacy—namely, ask-
ing viewers to recognize that nonhuman animals possessed emotional and
intellectual traits very similar to those of humans. For example, one reviewer
noted that “Sir Edwin Landseer’s art is totally different in kind; he does not
so much aim at obtaining a literal transcript of the animal, as getting into its
mysterious mind, and showing the working of its instincts and affections.”20
And an article published in Bell’s Life shortly after the artist’s death argued
that “whatever dogs do, their hope, their fear, their rage, their pleasure,
their delights, their discourse, was the farrago of Landseer’s painting. . . .
We were acquainted with it all before, but had really never seen it till we saw
it in Landseer’s pictures.”21
Landseer was undoubtedly popular with the general public in his day, but
his art also held a special place in the hearts and minds of late nineteenth-
and early twentieth-century reformers working on behalf of animals. Land-
seer’s paintings were among the imagery most frequently reproduced by
animal advocates in both Britain and North America during this period,
several decades after the pictures were first exhibited. In the last decades of
the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth, Landseer’s
images were repeatedly reproduced in leaflets and other publications pro-
duced by groups like the Victoria Street Society for the Protection of Animals
from Vivisection (a group that incorporated one of Landseer’s dogs into
its logo), the London and Provincial Anti-Vivisection Society, the Ameri-
can Anti-Vivisection Society, the Toronto Humane Society (THS), and the
MSPCA, to name just a few. Of Landseer’s oeuvre, certain pictures were
especially popular in this context, and three paintings in particular—The Old
Shepherd’s Chief Mourner, A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society, and
Saved!—were repeatedly reproduced in the pages of early animal advocacy.
The Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner is probably Landseer’s best-known paint-
ing (fig. 6).22 Considered an “exquisite work” and a “true and most affecting
transcript from nature,” this picture was painted in 1837 and exhibited at the
Royal Academy the same year.23 It features a solitary dog with his head resting
on the rustic wooden coffin that, the title tells us, contains the remains of an
old shepherd. Many people consider this sentimental scene of a faithful dog
refusing to leave his human companion’s side even in death the definitive
Landseer image. John Ruskin, the celebrated art critic, had high praise for
this image, and referred to it as “one of the most perfect . . . pictures.”24
It is, however, in another commentary on this painting that we find
an even more poignant understanding of its influence. In one of Land-
seer’s obituaries, the picture was celebrated for its ability to shift a viewer’s
understanding of the relationship between human and nonhuman animals:
“by the ‘Shepherd’s Chief Mourner’ we have all been cheated out of the pride
of our humanity. And, losing this pride, we find that it has hidden from us a
whole world of knowledge.”25 This painting, in other words, revealed for the
writer—and presumably for at least some of the readers of his article—the
extent to which a painting like this can reduce the “pride of humanity” and,
in so doing, open the door to the recognition that human and nonhuman
animals have much in common. This was the primary aim of organizations
34 Art for Animals
Fig. 6 Sir Edwin Landseer, The Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner, 1837. Image © Victoria and
Albert Museum, London.
like the MSPCA26 and the RSPCA27 in reprinting this picture in their advo-
cacy materials.
Two other Landseer paintings were particularly favored by those working
in animal advocacy: A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society (fig. 7) and
Saved! (fig. 8). Both of these paintings focus on a Newfoundland dog, a type
of dog that has a reputation for being especially skilled at water rescue.
The Humane Society referred to in Landseer’s title is the Royal Humane
Society of Britain, which was formed in 1774 and was originally called the
Society for the Recovery of Persons Apparently Drowned. Landseer’s playful
reference to the dog as a member of this organization acknowledges both
the extraordinary rescue efforts performed by Newfoundland dogs and the
“selfless” qualities attributed to all who perform marine rescues, human or
canine. The relationship between image and text, in other words, focuses
our attention on both the qualities that make this breed of dog unique and
those that make this breed of dog seem decidedly like us.
Fig. 7 Sir Edwin Landseer, A Distinguished Member of the Humane
Society, exhibited 1838. Image © Tate, London 2017.
Fig. 8 Samuel Cousins, print of Sir Edwin Landseer’s Saved! Published by Henry Graves,
1859. Image © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.
36 Art for Animals
In A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society, a large black-and-white

Newfoundland dog rests on the water’s edge, his paws dangling casually over
the edge of the cement dock while sea birds hover in the background. It is not
clear whether this dog is catching his breath after a recent rescue or waiting
attentively to be called into service. What is important is the legendary life-
saving ability attributed to this breed of dog. This painting was “reputed to be
the noblest picture of a Newfoundland extant,”28 and its many reproductions
cemented the relationship between Landseer and Newfoundlands, so much
so that even today a black-and-white Newfoundland dog is referred to as a
“Landseer.”29 This picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1838 and
proved so popular that in 1839 the artist’s brother, Thomas Landseer, was
commissioned to make an engraving of it so that copies could be sold.30
The dog who posed for this painting was named Paul Pry. There are sev-
eral stories about how Landseer met this dog—in some, Paul Pry was report-
edly carrying a basket of flowers in his mouth as he walked down a London
street, and Landseer was so taken with the sight that he insisted on painting
a portrait of the animal.31 Other versions of the story state that Paul Pry was
delivering a message when Landseer first spotted him,32 and there is even
a version that traces Landseer’s first encounter with Paul Pry to a dinner
party. It is also said that Landseer’s decision to paint this picture stemmed
from his desire to commemorate and honor another dog, a dog named Bob
who was reportedly “twice shipwrecked” and who, as Beryl Gray recounts,
had “taken up residence in the London Docklands area where he made it
his mission to rescue people from the water.” Bob had allegedly rescued
so many people from drowning that he was awarded a medal by the Royal
Humane Society, the marine rescue organization. According to this version
of events, Landseer was so impressed by Bob’s heroic feats that he decided
to commemorate the dog’s bravery and service to humankind in a painting,
but, as Jan Bondeson notes, “when Landseer decided to paint Bob in 1837,
the dog could not be located, and there is still debate as to whether he really
existed, or if the whole thing had just been a newspaper hoax.”33
In a recent annual report, the Royal Humane Society reported on the
story of Bob and his connection to Landseer’s art. In that report, the story
of Bob receiving a medal for bravery was revealed as a probable myth—“there
is no evidence in our archives to support the idea that the medal had been
awarded by us. Indeed, the Society has never given a medal to an animal and
would not consider doing so.”34 What we do know is that Landseer’s painting
went on to become one of his most beloved and recognized pictures. It would
also, several decades later, be taken up by a number of animal advocacy

organizations. The idea that dogs could be so selfless and brave was enough
to make this picture a perfect fit for reformers trying to change the ways in
which people thought about nonhuman animals.
The Victoria Street Society for the Protection of Animals from Vivisection
adopted a cropped version of A Distinguished Member of the Humane Soci-
ety in its logo (see fig. 2).35 The well-known reformer Frances Power Cobbe
founded the organization in 1875 as a means of lobbying against the practice
of experimentation on live animal bodies.36 This organization was especially
prolific in publishing campaign materials—as Harriet Ritvo notes, “by 1892
the Victoria Street Society alone had published 320 books, pamphlets, and
leaflets, of which over 270,000 copies had been distributed.”37 That the spe-
cific dog who served as Landseer’s inspiration for the original painting was
undoubtedly long dead did not matter to Cobbe and the other members of
the Victoria Street Society; it was what this dog had come to stand for that
interested these antivivisection activists.
In 1856, Landseer once again painted an image celebrating the legend-
ary marine rescues performed by Newfoundland dogs. Saved! features the
dramatic narrative that A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society lacks.
In this painting, Landseer depicted a scene just moments after the canine
rescuer has brought a young child safely back to land. The child lies uncon-
scious on the rocky shoreline, while the dog, clearly exhausted from the
rescue effort, looks upward, perhaps toward the anxious family of the young
girl. Landseer dedicated this painting to the Royal Humane Society, and a
large print of the image still hangs in the society’s office today.38
Like A Distinguished Member, this picture was adopted by animal advocates.
A copy of Saved! appeared on the cover of Vivisection in America, published by
Frances Power Cobbe and Benjamin Bryan in 1890. In this case, an organiza-
tion aimed at abolishing vivisection adopted an image that apparently had
nothing to do with medical research or laboratory experimentation. Instead
of showing animal bodies being restrained or cut open (as Cobbe did else-
where), the visual strategy was to focus the viewer’s attention on the exem-
plary qualities, achievements, and abilities of nonhuman animals. Coupled
with the antivivisection sentiment of the publication, the image served as
a plea to support efforts to keep these animals safe from harm—if they are
willing to help us, then why is it so hard for us to repay the courtesy?
Landseer’s ability to capture the emotion and intelligence of animals
received both praise and criticism—as one writer put it, “hyper-critics have
38 Art for Animals
found fault with some of Landseer’s productions because, as they assert,

‘he invests the lower animals with soul as well as body.’ ” It was precisely
this quality, however, that made Landseer’s pictures so popular with animal
advocates. As one nineteenth-century commentator noted, “Our domestic
pets do, undoubtedly, under his exquisite treatment, become thinking crea-
tures. They are endowed with intelligence. Their thoughts are written in their
gestures or their features. Their sensibility is unmistakable. All this is noth-
ing more than executive fidelity to nature and large-hearted sympathy with
it. The dog does evince anxieties, emotions, passions and desires.”39 Land-
seer’s paintings suggested some of the ways in which nonhuman animals
were capable of some of the same emotional and intellectual experiences
that humans were. This made his pictures especially valuable in campaigns
intended to get people to think about the ways in which nonhuman animals
could experience feelings such as joy, grief, friendship, fear. It was hoped that
this realization would underscore just how cruel things like vivisection were.
G ALLERIE S, MUSEUMS, AND E XH IBI T IONS
The use of visual culture in animal advocacy can be seen as an extension of

discussions surrounding the “civilizing” potential of museums and galleries
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The history of these institutions
is inextricably linked with the idea that art and cultural displays served as
important tools of edification for all members of society. As Tony Bennett
points out in The Birth of the Museum, museums and art galleries were “sum-
moned to the task of cultural governance of the populace,” and were “called
on to help form and shape the moral, mental, and behavioral characteris-
tics of the population.”40 Extended visiting hours and reduced ticket prices
were designed to entice people who might not otherwise visit a gallery or
museum—the very classes of people that many moral reformers thought
would most benefit from engaging with the exhibits inside. As Kean notes,
“galleries and museums were opened to the public to communicate particular
cultural meanings and to encourage moral behavior and good conduct.”41
This belief in the “civilizing” and moral potential of museums was broad in
reach and did not focus explicitly on the treatment of animals. However,
when we consider the ways in which art and visual culture were an extensive
part of animal advocacy during this period, we need to remember that this
phenomenon is related to these more widespread cultural ideals, which saw
direct links between the viewing of art and cultural artifacts and morally
just and proper behavior.
The link between kindness to animals and viewing art was also made
explicit in reviews of exhibitions and articles about art regularly found in the
pages of magazines and newsletters published by animal advocacy groups.
In March 1885, the Animal World, a publication of the RSPCA, ran an article
called “The Dog’s Place in Art” in which the author noted that “although dogs
have been more or less painted or carved since men used brush and chisel,
they have never held so important a position in art as they do now.”42 It did
not escape the notice of the RSPCA executive committee that this increased
focus on the representation of animals in art was occurring at the same time
that organized animal advocacy was gaining strength.
One of the paintings featured in “The Dog’s Place in Art” was John
Everett Millais’s 1852 painting The Order of Release, 1746. The subject of this
painting is a family reunited after the father’s release as a political prisoner.
The scene of reunification shows the family members—including the fam-
ily dog—embracing and forming a tight, intimate circle that signifies their
strong familial bond. Of this picture, the author notes, “the dog has his due
importance as a member of the family, and the painter does not ignore the
canine gladness and affection.” The inclusion of the dog as a member of the
family was significant, as was the idea that a dog could experience “gladness
and affection.” The interest in this painting on the part of the editors of the
Animal World can be related to broader cultural discussions in Britain in the
wake of the publication of Charles Darwin’s theories on the connections
between human and nonhuman animals. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species
(1859) and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) inten-
sified the debates about just how similar human and nonhuman animals
were when it came to things like intelligence and emotions. The idea that a
dog could be part of a family circle and share in the “gladness and affection”
following the return of the patriarch to the family unit did not seem at all
far-fetched in this context.
“The Dog’s Place in Art” also singled out Landseer’s Old Shepherd’s Chief
Mourner for comment. This painting tells the story of the deep bond between
a man and his dog, something many viewers could relate to. In this picture,
a dog mourns alongside a simple, rustic coffin containing the body of his
beloved human companion. As the author of this piece writes, “the dog is
alone in his lamentation, and yet we feel that the bereaved creature is in
the place that is his by a natural right, by right of long service, of constant
40 Art for Animals
companionship, of humble faithful friendship and deep love.” This idea that
deep relationships could form between human and nonhuman animals
made this picture of particular interest to those working in animal advocacy
as they strove to communicate the message that nonhuman animals were
deserving of kindness and humane treatment because of their emotional
and intellectual capacities. Simply put, if a dog could grieve, would it not also
make sense that he or she could feel fear and pain? If so, the logical extension
was that it was immoral and unjust to subject nonhuman animals to situa-
tions in which they would experience unnecessary distress or discomfort.
In both of these examples, the author of “The Dog’s Place in Art” focused
on the bond between humans and nonhuman animals. The proliferation
of dogs in art may be attributed to the fact that “dogs have not only the
interest of character and intelligence,” but “also a rich variety of form and
colour and texture . . . delighting the eye of the artist while he is at work, and
permitting him to make good pictures.” However, there is something else at
work here, for these are very specific types of pictures. Many of the paintings
singled out in this article represent nonhuman animals as experiencing and
expressing emotions very similar to those experienced and recognized by
humans—love, loyalty, and grief, for example. The way these images stressed
the commonalties between species served as important visual arguments for
humane and compassionate treatment of nonhuman animals. The viewer,
it was assumed, would know from his or her own experience how it felt to
grieve the loss of a loved one, or how wonderful it was to be reunited with
someone they cared deeply about. Viewers’ responses to these images, it was
hoped, would force them to think about how nonhuman animals felt in
similar situations. Art, in this context, could engender a sense of what Lori
Gruen refers to as “entangled empathy,” which could in turn lead to different
attitudes and behaviors toward nonhuman animals.
This article about dogs in art did not appear in an art periodical but in a
publication produced by the RSPCA, an organization dedicated to preventing
cruelty to animals. In this context, art was understood to be an important nar-
rative tool used to communicate to readers of the Animal World that nonhu-
man animals should be treated with kindness and compassion. By focusing on
these specific paintings in this publication, the RSPCA provided visual justifi-
cation for its ongoing work—if a dog could be a loyal and faithful friend, then
was it not important to ensure that dogs were treated with kindness and com-
passion by the humans who shared their lives with them? It was the mandate
of groups like the RSPCA to ensure that the idea of being kind to nonhuman
Fig. 9 Marianne Stokes, A Parting, 1884. Image © National

Museums Liverpool, The Walker Art Gallery.
animals became normalized through educational and outreach campaigns,

and art and visual culture played an important role in these efforts.
Two years later, in 1887, the RSPCA published another article on a similar
topic. This time the piece focused specifically on the annual exhibition of
the Royal Academy at Burlington House in London. The article opened with
consideration of those who attended the annual exhibitions at Burlington
House, rejecting the common assumption that many people attended only
because it was a fashionable thing to do. “But are not these persons also rais-
ing their moral natures by attending exhibitions?” the article asked, making
a connection between viewing art and “the acquisition of critical powers.”43
Once again, we see an explicit focus on the link between viewing art and
self-betterment.
This 1887 article looked at the vast number of pieces in the annual Royal
Academy exhibitions in which nonhuman animals were featured, and the
writer described at great length the various pieces in which “animals are
of principal, secondary, or minor importance in the artists’ work.”44 In a
discussion comparing the number of pieces featuring animals at the 1887
exhibition with the works on display in previous years, the writer focused
on a painting by Marianne Stokes called A Parting (fig. 9), which was repro-
duced in the article.45 Stokes’s painting was one that critics had previously
described as “very touching,” and reviewers noted that it was also “painted
with care and skill.”46
42 Art for Animals
Stokes has been described as “a painter of keen apprehension in simple

things,” and we can certainly see this in A Parting.47 In this picture she has
painted a tender image of a young girl saying goodbye to a calf she has clearly
grown fond of. The French title of the painting—it was first exhibited at
the Paris Salon—is Condamnée a Mort (Condemned to death), and plainly
indicates the fate of the calf.48 The innocence of the calf and young girl are
jarringly juxtaposed with the harsh realities of a society dependent upon
animal agriculture. Even though the next violent stages of this calf’s short
life are not represented in the image, they are foreshadowed in the title,
a reminder that image-text relationships are an important aspect of the
meaning-making process when it comes to visual culture.
The bond between the child and the calf is represented in Stokes’s paint-
ing through the pose of these two central characters—the young girl tenderly
strokes the calf’s soft fur while he rests his head in her lap. At first glance,
this appears to be simply a heartwarming scene of interspecies friendship,
but upon closer inspection it becomes apparent that this picture is also about
the ways in which the bond between human and nonhuman animals is inter-
rupted and troubled by the exploitation of animal bodies for the production
of food.49 The calf’s four feet are bound together with rope—he is about to
be taken away from the kindness of this child and the farm he was born on,
the only life he has known so far. As the article points out, “the sorrow of the
child is made in keeping with the mute appeal of the pet, who forbodes evil,
because his four legs are bound together . . . a method that causes pain, and
if continued long causes cruelty too.”50 The dichotomy between this tender
scene and what comes next for the calf is intended to create an emotional
response in the viewer. What we do not know is whether this response in
turn raised questions for individual viewers about their role in this system,
but the RSPCA certainly hoped that it would.
We might not be too surprised to discover that this image and its accom-
panying commentary appeared in the Animal World, a publication produced
by an organization devoted to abolishing animal cruelty.51 But even main-
stream publications that were not specifically driven by animal advocacy
concerns focused on these aspects of Stokes’s painting. A Parting was also
reproduced in the Graphic on August 22, 1885,52 and the London correspon-
dent for the Argus, a Melbourne-based newspaper, admired the “perfectly
natural attitude” of the “chubby little girl” and “the pet from whom she
is presently to be parted.” The reviewer drew the reader’s attention to the
details of the painting, noting that the young child “sits on the straw-strewn
ground, an empty bowl from which her favourite has drunk its last draught
of milk is at her side; prone across her lap, its legs tied together in the hor-
rible fashion in which the harmless creatures are tortured before they are
killed, lies a pretty little calf; its mild eyes are lifted to her face, its soft
muzzle rests on her knees, her arms encircle its brown neck; her face is full
of the sorrow of childhood—bitter, if transient.”53 By focusing on both the
relationship between calf and child and the “horrible fashion” in which calves
are “tortured before they are killed,” the reviewer highlights the juxtaposition
between the tender bond of interspecies friendship and the utilitarian atti-
tudes that many hold when it comes to the treatment of nonhuman animals.
The child’s sorrow, we are told, is “bitter” but ultimately “transient,” meaning
that she will get over it, that she will toughen up and perhaps care less about
nonhuman animals as she grows up.
There is a subtle but important difference between these two reviews
of Stokes’s painting. The author of the piece in the Animal World consid-
ers—if only briefly—the point of view of the calf. By mentioning the “mute
appeal” that the calf in this picture makes, the writer calls attention to the
fact that neither of the figures in this painting is enjoying this parting—the
grief and fear are not limited to the little girl. The review in the Argus is
much more focused on the emotional experience of just one of the animals
in the picture—the human child. Further, the language used in the Animal
World review is consistent with much of the writing done by animal advo-
cacy groups at this time. By focusing on the calf’s “mute appeal,” the writer
acknowledges the agency of nonhuman animals, and the ways in which they
can experience emotions similar to those of humans. The “appeal” in this
case is that the calf is asking not to be separated from his friend and to have
his legs unbound. That this appeal is characterized as “mute” is in keeping
with the rhetoric of animal advocacy groups organized around the idea that
they had to speak up for animals because they were unable to do so for
themselves.54 The idea of being a “voice for the voiceless” was a recurring
theme in these publications.55
The RSPCA also singled out Thomas Sidney Cooper’s Old Smithfield Mar-
ket (fig. 10). Cooper was an English artist who became so well known for
his paintings of cattle that he was nicknamed “Cow” Cooper.56 Considered
by some contemporaries as “Britain’s most accomplished painter” and the
“foremost English cattle painter of the nineteenth century,” Cooper was com-
pared to such other well-known animal painters as Paulus Potter and Aelbert
Cuyp.57 Of Cooper’s Old Smithfield Market, the reviewer for the RSPCA noted
44 Art for Animals
Fig. 10 Thomas Sidney Cooper, The Old Smithfield Market, 1887. Private collection. Image
© Christie’s Images / Bridgeman Images.
that it “brings graphically before us the folly of driving affrighted animals

through crowded thoroughfares.”58 The painting is a glimpse of an earlier
time in London’s history, a time when cattle and other “livestock” were very
much a part of the fabric of city life.
Smithfield Market was established in 950 and had been an important
site for the sale of live animal bodies (“livestock”) for centuries. In Beastly
London, Hannah Velten notes that London “coped with the greatest volume
of domestic livestock destined for slaughter of any city in history.”59 As the
numbers of animals brought to Smithfield Market increased to meet the
growing demand for meat in Britain, complaints about the market began
to mount. The market site was a central location in the city, and the pres-
ence of large numbers of cattle, sheep, pigs, and geese became increasingly
incompatible with urban living. Complaints grew louder, and by the early
nineteenth century there were formal attempts to move the market to
another location. As the article in the Animal World put it, “twice a week the
old marketplace reeked with suffering and cruelty, which demoralized boys
and girls as well as drovers; for every avenue leading there was choked with
cattle, and scenes of violence were inevitable.”60
Stephen F. Eisenman has noted that the relocation of Smithfield Market
in 1855 was related to the desire to distance the citizens of London from “the
sights, smells and outcries associated with death.” This change was, in other
words, more about removing offending stimuli from view than about con-
cern for the well-being of the nonhuman animals at the center of this indus-
try. Very little changed in terms of the treatment of the animals bought
and sold at the new location; in fact, there may have even been an increase
in cruel practices. As Eisenman notes, “the irony is that the very welfarist
perspective that demanded that centralized abattoirs be removed from pub-
lic view essentially silenced the cries of protest of slaughtered animals and
advanced the counter-revolution against animal rights. Out of the sight and
hearing of the public, the age of mass or industrial slaughter could begin.”61
Removing the visceral reminders that meat production and consumption
depended on the bodies of living animals had significant consequences for
those animals. Out of sight, out of mind. This, as we shall see in the next
chapter, also had consequences for how animal welfare advocates chose to
use visual culture in their reform efforts—bringing back into view what was
hidden was considered an essential aspect of “bearing witness.”
Cooper’s painting is a visual representation of an earlier time in London’s
history, when the sights, sounds, and smells associated with the production
and consumption of meat were obvious to those who lived there. Scholars
such as Diana Donald have characterized Smithfield as “a shaming blot on the
imperial capital,”62 and the reviewer for the Animal World wrote about how
Cooper’s painting illustrated the “folly” of having livestock in the city, and
how “violence,” “suffering,” and “cruelty” went hand in hand with this. And
yet none of this is readily apparent in Cooper’s representation of Smithfield
46 Art for Animals
Fig. 11 A Night View of Smithfield Market. Published in the Animals’ Friend, 1840. Image
© The British Library Board.
Market. Instead, the painting is infused with a soft, golden light, indicative
of the early morning hour at which the drovers would have been bringing
these animals through the streets leading to Smithfield Market. The warm
tones also symbolically suggest a nostalgic look back at a different way of life.
While it is true that seeing cattle on the streets as depicted in Cooper’s
painting would have been visually jarring to those who were no longer accus-
tomed to sights like this on a regular basis, there is little in this picture
to suggest the chaos and violence that appears in other representations of
Smithfield Market. This stands in marked contrast, for example, to a picture
of Smithfield Market that was reproduced in the Animals’ Friend in 1840
(fig. 11).63 This is a much earlier representation of Smithfield Market, one
that isn’t looking back in time but depicting contemporary conditions. This
is a small black-and-white picture, a scene of chaos, in which the bodies of
the nonhuman animals in the scene are contorted in fear and pain, and the
human animals are represented as demonic and ghoulish. As Diana Donald
has noted, the “subhuman, yelling faces and the chaos of animals and build-
ings give a sense of nightmare and unmitigated moral darkness.”64
When the editors of the Animal World chose to write about Cooper’s paint-
ing, they were highlighting the fact that times were changing, that things
were improving for animals through the work and efforts of organizations
like the RSPCA. I do not suggest that by focusing on this painting the RSPCA
was campaigning against meat or advancing the argument of an ethical veg-
etarian lifestyle.65 Other reformers took up this issue in the late nineteenth
century, but not the RSPCA. What, then, was the RSPCA’s interest in this
painting? The RSPCA was drawing attention to the cumulative effect of its
advocacy efforts, since the organization was founded in 1824. Cooper’s pic-
ture became a symbol of many types of reform efforts on behalf of non-
human animals, specifically those for which groups like the RSPCA could
directly take credit. The striking visual difference between the old Smithfield
Market and the market familiar to those at the end of the century is sig-
nificant here, but the changes at Smithfield were just the tip of the iceberg
in terms of shifting attitudes toward nonhuman animals. This is related
to broader shifts in thinking about nonhuman animals in Britain over the
course of the nineteenth century—Harriet Ritvo notes that as organized
animal advocacy took hold, “members of the humane establishment . . .
could point with pride to a series of administrative and legal breakthroughs
and to steadily widening public support for their activities.”66 The RSPCA
had fought since its inception against cruelties at Smithfield. Indeed, at the
very first meeting of what would later become the RSPCA, it was decided
that the organization would send representatives to Smithfield Market to
monitor the treatment of animals there.67 The mention of this painting in
the Animal World, then, strategically reinforces the importance of organized
animal advocacy in the late nineteenth century, and legitimizes the ongoing
efforts (including fund-raising and legislative support) in which the RSPCA
was involved.
Pictures of interest to animal advocates continued to appear in exhi-
bitions held during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For
example, the Victorian Era Exhibition at Earl’s Court, held in 1897 as part of
the diamond jubilee celebrations marking the sixtieth anniversary of Queen
Victoria’s reign, included a painting that caught the attention of antivivi-
section advocates (fig. 12). The painting in question was called Vivisection—
The Last Appeal, painted in 1882 by John McLure Hamilton, an American
artist who ended up settling in London in 1878.68 In this image, a vivisector
stands with his back to the viewer, a scientific instrument in the hand behind
his back. On the table before him is a small dog who stands on her hind legs,
her front paws bent in front of her chest—a pose that anyone who has spent
time with dogs would recognize as a begging stance. Here, however, the small
dog is not begging for a treat or to play but for mercy. The compositional
48 Art for Animals
Fig. 12 Charles John Tomkins,

print of John McLure Hamilton’s
Vivisection—The Last Appeal.
Published by Henry Graves,
1883. Image: Wellcome Library,
London.
details—the scientific instruments and the dead body of a bird, the subject
of a previous experiment—tell us how this scene is going to play out.
Hamilton’s painting had previously been exhibited at the Albert Pal-
ace in the autumn of 1885 and at the Guardi and Continental Gallery in
December 1882. Charles John Tomkins made an engraving of this paint-
ing, and the engraving was then exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1884.69
The Animal Defence and Anti-Vivisection Society and the National Canine
Defence League used this image in their campaigns in the early twentieth
century.70 At the 1897 exhibition, Hamilton’s painting was hung in Room 4
and attracted considerable attention.71 The Art Journal had previously called
it “a most painful picture” but noted that “its power is acknowledged unhes-
itatingly.”72 Again, one might expect this sort of attention in a periodical like
the Art Journal, but publications produced by animal advocacy groups also
devoted considerable space in their issues to detailed discussions of specific
works of art. For example, a letter from a Mr. Edwin C. R. Langley to the edi-
tors of the Animals’ Friend, published in the September 1897 issue, described
Hamilton’s painting as “a picture which I wish all your readers could see; but
especially those—should there be any—whose sympathies are either cold or
wanting.” “Can it be possible,” Langley wondered, “to look upon that picture
and come away a vivisectionist?”73
IMP OR TAN CE OF ILL US T R AT IONS
As is the case today, art exhibitions were just one of many places where
people could engage with visual imagery. In the context of animal advocacy,
there was a rise in the number of images used in education and campaign
material in the nineteenth century, as new developments in printing and
image reproduction made it easier and cheaper than ever before to reproduce
images. Animal advocacy groups placed tremendous importance on illus-
trations. For example, Sidney Trist, who served as secretary of the London
Anti-Vivisection Society, also edited the Animals’ Friend and another peri-
odical called the Animals’ Guardian.74 He also published an illustrated book
called The Under Dog in 1913, a collection of essays “on the wrongs suffered
by animals at the hand of man.” Trist understood the importance of images
in educational and advocacy campaigns and believed that “you can teach
people more by the eye than the ear.”75 He “made the illustrations [an] espe-
cial feature” of the publications he edited.76
Critics and contemporary audiences seemed to agree with this point of
view, as Trist’s publications were cited as being more eye-catching and influ-
ential than other animal advocacy publications available at the time. In an
article in the English Illustrated Magazine in March 1909, a writer named Clare
Neave noted that, although she had “always loved animals,” she “did not pay
very much attention” to the many pamphlets and “countless circulars from
those who are interested in the several societies which exist for the purpose
of stamping out vivisection—that most awful of crimes.” Neave thought
that this was because most of the other advocacy publications were “not
sufficiently well written enough to claim my attention.” However, when she
came across Trist’s periodicals, she immediately saw that they were “of a
different nature,” “so beautifully printed and so charmingly got up” that she
was encouraged to read them.77 Trist’s insistence on creating eye-catching
and visually engaging publications through the inclusion of images went a
long way toward drawing attention to issues like vivisection. The generous
support of donors—in particular, the financial support of “a lady noted for
50 Art for Animals
her generous support of all good causes”—allowed for “a really well-designed

front page” and “an attractive exterior” on these publications.78
In 1888, the Toronto Humane Society published Aims and Objects of the
Toronto Humane Society, a richly illustrated book that outlined the vision and
work of the organization. George Hodgins, one of the vice presidents of the
THS, edited the publication, which included 112 illustrations.79 Hodgins felt
that if people didn’t have “full information on the subject of the work of a
Humane Society,” it would be difficult to raise funds, and “without these
funds the reader will see that but little can be accomplished.”80 The inclusion
of more than a hundred engravings enhanced the book considerably, but it
also greatly increased production costs. The THS had hoped to distribute it
for free, but the cost of the illustrations made that impossible.81 In spite of
the extra cost, the directors of the THS opted to include the images because
they saw them as an essential part of their education and advocacy efforts.82
By the late nineteenth century, it had become nearly unthinkable to conduct
animal advocacy without the assistance of illustrations.
The images in the book ranged from a scene showing “inhumanity in
loading cattle,” in which workers were depicted prodding cattle who have
been tightly packed into a railcar, to a heartwarming scene of a kitten play-
ing with falling leaves.83 Many of the images and illustrated stories had
been used by other animal advocacy groups in Britain and North America,
a reminder that many of these organizations worked together and often
shared resources. This process of sharing and reusing pictures also created
an iconography of advocacy images that were repeated over and over again,
thus creating a visual vocabulary that became shorthand for complex ideas
about what constituted “cruel” and “humane” behavior in this period.
One of the stories featured in Aims and Objects is called “Kindness to
Sheep on a Cattle-Train” (fig. 13). This is a story recounted by Louisa May
Alcott, the author of Little Women, and is accompanied by a picture of two
young girls giving food and water to sheep crammed in an open-sided train
car.84 Alcott had been traveling by rail, and when her train stopped at a sta-
tion, she saw another train parked along the tracks, this one full of sheep
and cattle—“full in the hot sun stood the cars; and every crevice of room
between the bars across the doorways was filled with pathetic noses.” As she
contemplated getting off the train to do what she could to assist these ani-
mals who were clearly in distress, Alcott noticed two young girls coming to
their aid. As Alcott noted, “in spite of their old hats and their bare feet, and
their shabby gowns,” the girls’ “little tanned faces grew lovely” to her because
Fig. 13 Kindness to Sheep on a Cattle-Train. Published in J. George

Hodgins, Aims and Objects of the Toronto Humane Society, 1888.
Collection of the author.
of the kindness they were offering to the sheep and cattle. One of the girls
repeatedly filled a bucket with water and kept bringing it to the hot and
thirsty animals, while her companion offered handfuls of clover and grass to
them. As Alcott writes, “I wish I could have told those tender-hearted chil-
dren how beautiful their compassion made that hot, noisy place, and what
a sweet picture I took away with me of these two little sisters of charity.”85
This story and the accompanying picture made the rounds in a number of
advocacy contexts—before appearing in Aims and Objects, it was published
in pamphlet form by the MSPCA.86 It was also included in Sarah J. Eddy’s
humane education text Songs of a Happy Life.87
Like the Toronto Humane Society, the Boston-based Massachusetts
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals paid particular attention
to imagery in its educational and advocacy campaigns. In order to assist
with the cost of obtaining and reproducing images, the MSPCA frequently
sent appeals to its supporters asking for financial support for “high class
artwork, films, slides, pictorial booklets in various languages and [the devel-
opment of] a thorough-going press bureau.” The official publication of the
MSCPA, Our Dumb Animals, was richly illustrated. In 1912, an article about
the MSPCA in the Cambridge Chronicle noted how “booklet, page, and picture
are now the quickest and best ways of reaching the masses,” and remarked
52 Art for Animals
that the MSPCA was especially good at using visual culture in its advocacy
and education efforts.88
Other organizations followed suit. The Journal of Zoophily, a joint publica-
tion of the American Anti-Vivisection Society and the women’s branch of the
Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, dedicated a
section of their publication, called “The Library,” to the review of arts and lit-
erature. The editors noted that in this section “especial attention will be given
to etched and engraved reproductions of the works of the Old as well as the
Modern Masters, also to pictures illustrating the different phases of animal
life.” The Journal of Zoophily actively promoted “the study of the Humanities,”
which “made men humane.”89 Likewise, the Royal Society for the Protection
of Birds went to considerable expense to produce illustrated material for
public display in Britain.90 Over and over again, these kinds of organizations
underscored the link between appreciating art and being “humane.”
HUM ANE EDUC AT ION AND V ISUAL CULT URE
Henry Bergh, the founder of the ASPCA, believed that art and visual culture
could play an important role in creating a kinder and more humane world,
reaching even the youngest members of society. In an article in the Journal of
Education, he argued that “children of the tenderest age, even before they can
articulate, may be taught, through the simple agency of pictures, to admire
and appreciate living creatures.”91 This emphasis on teaching children to be
kind to animals was a central component of humane education efforts in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Humane education, broadly defined, is about teaching the value and vir-
tues of compassion for all species, and it has taken different forms depending
on the historical period, geographical location, and other sociopolitical fac-
tors. Proponents of humane education have frequently argued that it would
greatly decrease crime and fix social problems. For example, the preface to
A Mother’s Lessons on Kindness to Animals, one of the texts used in humane
education efforts during this period, notes that “habits of cruelty in the
young, if not checked in time, are very dangerous, and lead to many other
sins. They harden the heart against every right and proper feeling. Children
who are cruel to animals will soon be cruel to their parents, brothers, and
sisters; as every act of cruelty increases the will and the power to repeat it,
until it becomes a rooted and settled principle.”92 According to this point of
view, a child who was not taught to be kind to animals at an early age could
grow up to lead a life of violence and antisocial behavior, perhaps even crim-
inal behavior. As an article about the MSPCA’s humane education programs
noted, “humanity to animals, or the sentiment of benevolence, inculcated
in the minds of children, tends toward the prevention of crime.”93 An 1896
study attempted to determine whether children who had pets and who had
learned to care for them were less likely than others to engage in criminal
behavior—a survey of two thousand inmates in American prisons found
that “only three ever had possessed a pet animal of any kind.”94 Humane
education was even cited as being an important tool for peace.95 Given the
importance placed on humane education, organizations like the THS saw
themselves not as “simply a patrol society for the prevention of cruelty.” They
believed that they had “a higher work, which was to educate the people and
indoctrinate the youth of the land with humane principles.”96
Humane education tends to focus primarily on children, the philosophy
being that lessons on kindness and compassion learned as a child make a
lasting impression and therefore influence behavior and attitudes in adult-
hood. As Diane L. Beers notes, “the solution seemed deceptively simple and
enticing: teach the children, and the children would rise to heal the world.”97
During this period, there was a push to have humane education legislated in
classrooms throughout the United States that was led by George T. Angell,
founder of both the MSPCA and the American Humane Education Society
(AHES). Thanks to his efforts, in 1886 humane education was legislated as
part of the curriculum in the state of Massachusetts. Other states followed
suit, although, as Bernard Unti and Bill DeRosa have noted, this legislation
was not enforced with any degree of uniformity.98 Perhaps in an attempt to
counter this, organizations like the AHES took it upon themselves to ensure
that humane education material got into the hands of students and teachers,
producing copious amounts of material intended to bring humane education
to children around the world. Illustrated books and periodicals, lantern slide
lectures, and films became a standard part of humane education curricula,
and guidebooks for teachers made suggestions for lesson plans and included
material appropriate to all grade levels. This campaign was not limited to
the United States—the annual reports of the AHES detail the activities of
their fieldworkers in places like Canada, France, Holland, Turkey, England,
Guatemala, Mexico, and Cuba as well.99
One of the reasons for resistance to including humane education material
in the classroom was that teachers already had to cover a lot of material each
54 Art for Animals
year, and it was believed by many that the addition of humane education
would mean removing something else. But this argument was countered by
proponents, who argued that humane education need not be its own special
discipline, that it could be related to existing school subjects. For example,
an article in the Practical Teacher in February 1900 encouraged teachers to
incorporate humane education into already-existing lesson plans. So, for
example, when students learned to recite poetry, the poems selected could
focus on kindness and compassion for all species; as the article of this article
pointed out, “it is quite astonishing how easily this subject works in with
others.” This article also notes the importance of art in this endeavor: “The
pictures in a school where there is a Band of Mercy generally tell the tale.
What can be better than ‘An Old Pensioner,’ by Rosa Bonheur, for young eyes
to gaze on?”100
The Toronto Humane Society actively advocated “pretty pictures” in
classrooms, noting the link between “humane teaching” and the “uncon-
scious influence of surroundings.”101 In Britain, the Animals’ Friend School
Pictures series was advertised as a way to foster compassion in young stu-
dents. These pictures were intended to be hung in the classroom and were
described as being able to “convey some useful and humanising lessons, and
serve to suggest and stimulate thought as to our proper conduct towards
the sub-human races.” The series included such titles as Poor Sheep! Here Is
Some Water for You; Is Not He Glad to Be Free Again! (The Caged Lark); and
Don’t Chain Your Dog All Day. These brightly colored pictures were mounted
on cardstock, 40 × 30 inches in size, and sold for 1s. 6d. Animals’ Friend
“kindness cards” were produced with the same aim: “to enlist the sympathy
of children and uneducated people, to whom pictorial representation appeals
most readily, and to give them, in simple language, some reasons for taking
an intelligent and kindly interest in the animals who live with us.”102 The
relationship between conducting oneself according to the lessons depicted
was stressed again and again in the context of humane education. Pictures
were considered ideal for this kind of education because they were thought
to be easier to understand than other forms of communication and therefore
would appeal to a broader audience.
In 1910, Flora Helm Krause, an active member of the Chicago Anti-
Cruelty Society, published her Manual of Moral and Humane Education,
a book widely used in humane education curricula in the early decades of
the twentieth century. It includes the text of an address that Krause gave
at the thirty-third annual meeting of the American Humane Association in
1909, and a number of chapters that outline her reasons for believing that
humane education should play a central role in the education of children. She
goes beyond the philosophical in this book, however, and offers examples of
material and assignments that can be brought into the classroom at different
grade levels. For elementary school children, Krause listed four key areas of
humane education: nature study, civics, art, and literature, and noted that
these are not four distinct categories but that they overlap and influence one
another.103
Art, in fact, was such an important part of the curriculum that Krause
outlined that she suggested that whenever possible it be incorporated into
the classroom. In the earlier grades, she saw art as essential for “an objective
study of life—human, brute, or both—through colored prints, photographs,
or copies of the masterpieces.” Krause’s book was organized thematically by
month, with examples and activities clustered around seasonal holidays or
activities. Her lesson plans listed specific pictures that could be used in the
classroom, and she noted that teachers could get “copies of the art classics
recommended in the graded course of study” from companies like the Perry
Picture Company in Malden, Massachusetts.104
As mentioned above, the emphasis on imagery in animal advocacy and
humane education can be seen as part of a larger movement that empha-
sized the educational and “civilizing” function of art. T. C. Horsfall was a
strong advocate of this principle. Horsfall established the Manchester Art
Museum (also known as the Horsfall Museum) in Manchester, England,
in 1877 with the goal that this institution would serve to educate the
working-class people of that region.105 “Looking at pictures was seen as a
morally improving activity” on a number of fronts.106 Horsfall believed that
pictures of “animals and birds” were important because “the sentiment of
kindness towards them may strike deeper into the heart.”107 He was not
content to leave the educational aspects of art in the gallery, and launched a
program by which reproductions of famous works of art were brought into
schools.108 Horsfall was also the author of The Use of Pictures and Other Works
of Art in Elementary Schools, in which he strongly advocated the inclusion
of imagery in educational settings. “I fear few even of the most observant
people realise how much the degree and nature of love and hope depend on
early familiarity with beautiful things,” he wrote.109 He hoped to rectify this
situation by bringing art to children in elementary schools.
Horsfall was not the only proponent of bringing art to the classroom. In a
1907 article in the Journal of Education, George T. Sperry not only outlined at
56 Art for Animals
great length the benefits of including art in primary school curricula, but also
gave practical examples of how to do so. Sperry noted that “some teachers
use a picture to bring home to a class a certain lesson of great importance
to the common good.” He provided an example of an essay written by a
third-grade student in response to Landseer’s Sick Monkey (fig. 14), in which
the student skillfully demonstrated an ability at visual analysis through a
detailed description of the formal qualities and composition of the painting.
This student’s paper also drew connections between the nonhuman animals
in the picture and his own life: “This is a picture of the sick monkey and his
mother is taking care of him. . . . If I were sick my mother would spend all
her time caring for me.”110
A number of prominent artists agreed with the philosophies espoused
by Horsfall and Sperry—for example, Walter Crane “had long urged the
desirability of an extended use of the eye in the process of education.”111
Many, in other words, recognized “the teaching power of pictures.”112 There-
fore, when we consider the ways in which those working in animal advocacy
insisted on using art and visual culture in their campaigns, we need to be
mindful that this was part of a broader trend in education in both Britain
and North America. Moreover, this plethora of illustrated materials aimed
at teaching children how to be kind to animals, and why such behavior was
important, was an extension of even earlier educational practices. In The Ani-
mal Estate, Harriet Ritvo notes that during the eighteenth century in Brit-
ain there were a number of educational books aimed at children, and that
these publications “aimed to improve and instruct, not just . . . entertain.”
As Ritvo notes, nonhuman animals were quickly brought into this equation,
and “kindness to animals” became a “code for full and responsible accep-
tance of the obligations of society, while cruelty was identified with deviance.
The need for compassion was intertwined with the need for discipline.”113
As these examples show, the idea of kindness to animals was frequently
woven into broader notions of what it meant to be a good citizen.
BANDS OF MERC Y
The Band of Mercy movement was an important part of humane education,

and, not surprisingly, it also relied heavily on art and imagery. Bands of Mercy
were formal organizations that brought young boys and girls together under
the umbrella of being kind to animals. The Band of Mercy movement dates
Fig. 14 William Henry Simons, print of Sir Edwin Landseer’s The Sick Monkey. Published
by William Schaus / Henry Graves, 1875. Image © The Trustees of the British Museum. All
rights reserved.
58 Art for Animals
to 1875, when Catherine Smithies formed the first one in Britain. In 1879,
the Band of Mercy Advocate was first published in Britain. The RSPCA took
over the organization of both the Band of Mercy and its magazine in 1882,
the year the Band of Mercy movement came to North America. George T.
Angell teamed up with Reverend Thomas Timmins to start Bands of Mercy
in the United States. This movement grew rapidly in North America—by the
early twentieth century there were more than twenty-seven thousand chap-
ters in the United States, and by 1908 Canada had eighty chapters with more
than three thousand members.114 Bands of Mercy had regular meetings at
which members would recite stories and sing songs that were specially writ-
ten for these events. Lessons on kindness toward all species were given at
these meetings, often accompanied by music and lantern slide shows.
After Catherine Smithies died in 1877, her son, T. B. (Thomas Bywater)
Smithies, took over many of the Band of Mercy activities, including publish-
ing the Band of Mercy Advocate. T. B. Smithies was a well-known publisher
in London who also published the Band of Hope Review (a publication in
support of the temperance movement) and the British Workman (a publica-
tion focused on issues of importance to the British working class). Smithies
understood the importance of including striking imagery in his publications
and “had learned the lesson that pictures attract and teach the human mind,
and his illustrations therefore were in themselves sermons and treatises.”
His publications were “remarkable for the excellence of their illustrations
and the neatness of their embellishments,” according to his obituary, and
Smithies was praised for “his judgment and taste and enterprise, as regards
wood engravings.” He worked with some of the best-known artists of his day,
“retaining the services of eminent artists like Harrison Weir, Birket Foster,
and John Gilbert”; as a result, he was “rewarded not only by the enormous
sale of his publications, but by the universal appreciation and approval of
cultured persons.”115
NE W T EC HN OLOGIE S
Proponents of humane education and animal welfare frequently incorpo-

rated the most up-to-date visual technologies in their campaigns. This is,
of course, very similar to the ways in which activist groups today embrace
new ways of sharing images and information. Like many other reformers
in this era, those working for animal advocacy often relied on such visual
technologies as lantern slides to bring the theme of “kindness to animals”

to a diverse audience. So-called magic lanterns were an early form of visual
projection in which images could be shown to a room full of people, often
accompanied by spoken word or music. Lantern slide shows are a form of
visual education and entertainment that have a long history—prior to elec-
tricity, light sources such as candles or limelight were used in the projector.
The effect was enchanting, especially for audiences who had not had the
opportunity to witness this sort of spectacle before. As art historian Lynda
Nead notes, “the condition of the magic lantern show is a state of wonder,
as fantasy and imagination take hold of even the simplest images and give
them a story, a life.”116 In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
projected images and slide shows became an important part of humane
education campaigns. The slides were often accompanied by a story or nar-
rative that was read aloud during the projection. Lantern slide shows were
part performance, part spectacle, and, in the case of animal advocacy groups,
were underscored by messages of humane education.
For example, in 1898 the Canadian Department of Agriculture and the
Toronto Humane Society commissioned Toronto-based writer Annie G.
Savigny to produce an illustrated tale on the theme of kindness to animals.
The result was Dick Niven and His Horse Nobby: Lantern Slide Lecture Teaching
Kindness to Animals, a tale that was meant to be accompanied by twenty-four
lantern slides. The tale of Dick Niven was intended to instruct children on
ways in which they could be kind to the nonhuman animals they encoun-
tered in their lives. The protagonist, Dick Niven, encounters two horses on
the streets of Toronto who have been left to suffer a cold night without ade-
quate shelter or blankets. Dick intervenes to help the horses and incurs the
wrath of the horses’ owner, an evil character aptly named Nettle. At the end
of the tale, Niven emerges triumphant, and a lesson in kindness has been
learned both by the characters in the story and also, it was hoped, by those
attending the performance of this “magic lantern” show. While the original
images intended to accompany this lecture do not seem to have survived,
it is significant that this was intended to be an illustrated lecture. Visual
culture, in other words, was an integral part of this venture, not simply a
decorative afterthought. Further, three of the twenty-four slides featured
the lyrics of Band of Mercy hymns. The lyrics projected on the screen were
an invitation for audience members to join together in song. This shifted the
process from passive consumption of the narrative to active participation
on an individual level.
60 Art for Animals
Exactly how Savigny came to write the tale of Dick Niven is not known,
but we do know that at the monthly meeting of the THS in January 1897,
it was decided that a committee of five women (including Savigny) would
be in charge of organizing an event at which “magic-lantern slides” on the
theme of kindness to animals would be shown at the St. James schoolhouse
in Toronto.117 Savigny was a good fit for this project, as she had written a
previous work on the theme of animal advocacy, a book called Lion, The
Mastiff: From Life. The story of Dick Niven is one of many magic lantern
shows presented in relation to animal advocacy work in the city of Toronto;
the THS had a library of images that members could use to put together
illustrated lectures. The press often reviewed these events favorably—for
example, on January 21, 1898, the Globe reported that “the children at the
Girls’ Home were much delighted with an address given to them on Tuesday
evening by Mrs. Savigny, which consisted principally of anecdotes about
animals and birds, with illustrations by the lantern slides belonging to the
Humane Society.”118
Lantern slides became a central part of humane education, with many
agreeing with the assertion made in the Animals’ Guardian that “it is sur-
prising how a magic-lantern impresses a fact on children’s minds.”119 As the
years went on, new visual technologies were introduced as options available
to those working in humane education and animal advocacy, and motion pic-
tures were quickly adopted in this capacity. The MSPCA, for example, quickly
embraced “the moving picture” as an additional tool for humane education
in the early twentieth century.120 The Boston-based organization produced
a film called The Bell of Atri, a visualization of an epic poem by Longfellow,
which focused on the theme of kindness to animals.
In 1907, Charles Urban, the celebrated film producer, published a pam-
phlet called The Cinematograph in Science, Education, and Matters of State in
which he asserted, “The great importance of educating through the agency
of the eye, as well as through the ear, is now fully acknowledged and estab-
lished.” For Urban, film was a natural extension of previously existing edu-
cational methods used in schools, colleges, and universities. He also saw the
potential of film to reduce animal suffering and wrote about how motion pic-
tures could be used as a substitution for vivisection: “its success in demon-
strations upon living animals . . . would decrease vivisection experiments
by at least ninety per cent. of their present number. This is an argument
that should strongly appeal to all anti-vivisectionists.” This argument hinged
on the fact that a single experiment could be viewed over and over again.
In other words, many students could study scientific and physiological phe-
nomena through viewing a single experiment that was repeated on demand
through motion picture technology. Urban did not denounce vivisection per
se, and he attempted to stay out of the heated debates on the topic, noting
that whether any medical or scientific knowledge derived from vivisection is
ever justified “is not the purpose of this pamphlet to discuss.” He did, how-
ever, firmly believe that motion pictures had the potential to significantly
decrease the suffering of nonhuman animals by reducing the number of ani-
mals used in laboratories. He also touted pedagogical benefits relating to the
potential for a student to watch an experiment until he or she fully grasped
the concepts being illustrated. Urban also noted that the reenactment of
historic experiments for the purposes of teaching and demonstration could
be done through film so that a student could “have the opportunity of seeing
many of the historic and classical experiments that at present he can only
read of.”121
M AK IN G AR T
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Britain and
North America, there was a strong contingent of reformers who felt that it
was also important for children to have the opportunity to make art and cre-
ate their own visual images. This line of thinking expanded the educational
and advocacy potential found in visual culture to the process of creating
works of art. One of the earliest issues of the MSPCA’s Our Dumb Animals
included a lengthy article that illustrates this point. In “Educate Them Artis-
tically,” published in the June 1869 issue of the magazine, a contributor with
the initials S. S. W. makes an explicit connection between artistic training
and kind, humane behavior, arguing that it would be unlikely to find “evi-
dence of refinement and culture” in the home of someone who is unkind
to animals and that it was therefore incredibly important to offer children
instruction in the arts so that they will not partake in “deeds of cruelty.”
On the subject of sculpture, S. S. W. argues that a child who learns to
“work in marble” will have “emotions, susceptibilities and perceptions . . .
awakened, intensified and educated,” and will come to “understand the won-
derful representative power of living forms.” As the young sculptor learns
more, “he will fervently revere the warm, living, breathing models, of which
his utmost possible skill can only show you likenesses in cold, inanimate
62 Art for Animals
rock. No argument or persuasion will induce the gifted or educated sculp-

tor to strike out of existence that life which he finds he never could mould
into the most successful and ideal creation.” A similar argument is made for
those who take up brush and canvas: “As with the trained, practical sculp-
tor, so with the painter. He cannot be tempted to extinguish, needlessly,
the light of life, even in the most insignificant insect.” S. S. W. concludes
by stating that “the most humane, merciful, reverent men in the world’s
history are found among the cultivated artists.” This is undoubtedly a com-
plex argument and certainly one that is open to socioeconomic critique.
However, the notion that there is a correlation between producing art and
the development of humane sentiments is one that many people working
in humane education and animal advocacy at this time strongly believed.
This article encapsulates some of the important thinking between the arts
and animal advocacy that would shape some of the tactics and strategies of
animal rights, animal welfare, antivivisection, and humane education groups
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
S. S. W.’s published theories on the relationship between the arts and
kindness to animals undoubtedly raise many issues of class, gender, and
race privilege in nineteenth-century American society—in particular, the
uncompromising assertion that those who are cruel to animals are “offspring
of ignorance, and low and vulgar associations.”122 Further, this theory seems
to ignore the fact that vivisection—one of the most hotly debated topics
relating to nonhuman animals in the nineteenth century—was practiced by
medical students, physicians, and scientists—professionals, in other words,
who were held in high esteem and were rather far removed from “low and
vulgar associations.” And yet this plea for artistic education and the “regen-
erating influences of the arts” gives important contextual information with
respect to how those lobbying for kind and humane treatment of nonhuman
animals saw the role of art and visual culture functioning in these campaigns.
Many animal advocacy organizations held poster competitions in which
contestants submitted their original artwork on the general theme of the pro-
motion of kindness and the suppression of cruel behavior. These competitions
served as an efficient and economical way of generating visual material to
promote the work of the advocacy groups that sponsored the contests. Sydney
Coleman, who served on the executive committee of the ASPCA,123 noted that
these kinds of competitions “resulted in the first original art work ever available
for anticruelty propaganda.” Coleman concluded that “the missionary value
of the posters and essays has been very great.” However, these competitions
were valued for more than simply promoting the messages and campaigns of
groups like the ASPCA—this was a concrete opportunity to develop and fos-
ter humane sentiments through artistic endeavors. These competitions were
seen as important for animal advocacy efforts because through them entrants
“become greatly interested in humane education and anticruelty problems.”
As a result, Coleman thought, “more is being done in these ways for humane
advancement than the world realizes and the next generation of Americans
will show the result by a higher and nobler grade of citizenship.”124
These kinds of contests were frequently aimed at children, although some
competitions were open to all age groups. The Animals’ Guardian had a contest
in which it “offered a series of prizes to artists for the best designs for posters
illustrating humanity and inhumanity to animals.” The winning images from
these competitions were frequently reproduced and widely circulated, “as the
designs are very effective and must do good.”125 In 1906, Robert Morley’s
winning design for a competition sponsored by the Animals’ Guardian was
reproduced in postcard format so that it could be widely shared.126 Morley’s
antivivisection image shows four animals—a cat, a rabbit, a dog, and a mon-
key—huddled together against a wall (fig. 15). They have nowhere to escape
to and cling to one another for comfort. Above their heads is the shadow of
a hand holding a knife, a visualization of the title of the poster, The Shadow
of the Knife. The image-text relationship is further underscored with the
inclusion of the word “Help!” above the cowering animals. The copy of this
postcard that I viewed at the New York Public Library had additional text
included—a handwritten plea that reads: “Save us, We Would save You.”
Photography was also seen as an important aspect of fostering kindness
toward nonhuman animals, and the camera was increasingly promoted as a
safe and humane way to interact with other species. Children were encour-
aged to use a camera not only to learn about animals, but also to think of
photography as an alternate form of hunting—instead of capturing “tro-
phies,” photographs of wildlife became the “prize.” It is, of course, important
to remember that a photograph is a complex cultural document, and that
claims that photographic images can be used to assist with learning about
other species need to be considered through this framework. “The meaning
of a photograph” as Allan Sekula reminds us, “is inevitably subject to cul-
tural definition.”127 However, the prevalence of humane education material
encouraging children to pick up a camera to explore the world around them
indicates the degree to which this kind of image-making process was used
in animal advocacy. This theme of using photography to learn about other
Fig. 15 Robert Morley, The Shadow of the Knife, 1906. Image courtesy of the Science,
Industry, and Business Library, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden
Foundations.
species was prominent throughout humane education efforts in the late

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In Flora Helm Krause’s Manual of
Moral and Humane Education, for example, one of the “nature study” discus-
sion themes suggested for eighth-graders was “The Kodak can accomplish
more in science than the gun.”128 The responses to this debating point no
doubt varied among the students who responded, but the ensuing discus-
sion probably raised some important points about how to be kind to non-
human animals through the use of the camera.
As with the poster competition, the idea of promoting photography as a
humane way to interact with nonhuman animals was not limited to youth.
In May 1893, an article titled “Sport Without a Gun” appeared in the Animals’
Guardian, and the intended audience appeared to be both children and adults.
The author, Ernest Ingersoll, wrote, “One of the most satisfactory directions
in which amateur photography has turned has been toward the ‘taking’ of
living animals in their native haunts. Here is a substitute for the gun. It has
all the excitement of the chase, except the sight of the death-pang, and it
brings back a durable memento of achievement—a trophy worth having.”
Ingersoll and other proponents of “hunting with the camera” argued that
getting a good photograph actually took more skill than hunting did:
Like the hunter, the photographer of living animals must know their
habits, find their haunts, outwit their vigilance, and lull their suspi-
cions. Modern long-range firearms, with improved powder, make it a
comparatively easy matter to get within shooting distance of almost
any animal; but the sportsman who seeks to take the picture instead
of the life of a wild creature must stalk it far more carefully, get much
nearer to it, and obtain a clearer view of it. Those who have tried it
affirm that the uncertainty, cleverness, and excitement belonging to
successful photographs of this kind are far more than are required in
shooting the same game, and far more fun.
Ingersoll also argued that the experience of seeing a photograph of a living

animal was more enjoyable for most people than the experience of seeing
the “trophies” of an actual hunt:
The trophies, too, are much more interesting. A stuffed hide, no mat-
ter how well done, requires a tremendous strain of the imagination
that is asked to make it real; and a skin stretched as a rug upon the
66 Art for Animals
floor, or a pair of antlers hung against the wall, are useless to bring
back the scene of the chase to anyone except, perhaps, the hunter
himself. But the photograph of a stag browsing in his native glen,
of a woodcock crouched upon her nest, or a heron intently fishing in
some reedy pool, unsuspicious that a camera has been focused upon
it, forms a vivid memorandum whereby other eyes than those of the
artist can realise the scene and share the pleasure.129
The resulting photograph, in other words, could bring aesthetic enjoyment

to a broad audience.
In 1913, Our Dumb Animals reprinted an article from Forest and Stream
titled “Shooting Without a Gun” in which it was persuasively argued that the
skills that make one a successful hunter also are needed for successful pho-
tographic pursuits in the woods. The article notes that a photographer, like a
hunter, needs to be “stealthy” and “panther-like,” with a “tread that breaks no
twig nor rustles the fallen leaves. . . . The wild world is not made the poorer
by one life for his shot, nor nature’s peace disturbed, nor her nicely adjusted
balance jarred.”130 Photography, it was argued, could foster compassion for
nature and nonhuman animals without causing any direct harm.131
Amateur photography competitions further encouraged the use of the
camera in this way. For example, an article in the April 1896 issue of the Ani-
mals’ Friend noted that these kinds of contests were initiated “with a view to
encouraging the study of animals and their portraiture and of extending the
circle of interest in our magazine.”132 This monthly contest first ran in March
1896, and was open to any amateur photographer—photographs were due
by the tenth of each month, and each photographer was limited to a maxi-
mum of three entries. Winning entries were reproduced in future issues.
In January 1910, the American Humane Education Society solicited
“essays, stories, anecdotes, and photographs” for a contest in which the
winning entries would be published in Our Dumb Animals. The photographs
were to be of “animals or birds” as the “centre of attention,” and the first
prize for the winning photograph was $3.00.133 The winning photographs
were published in the March 1910 issue—B. H. Watts from Atlanta, Georgia,
won first prize for a photograph of a “Georgia possum” on a tree branch.
This prize-winning photograph of a “wild” animal stands in marked contrast
to most of the other winning entries that year. Many of the other pictures
awarded prizes featured animals who had been domesticated for human
use—sheep in a pen, oxen hauling a wagon load of corn, a horse under saddle
with the caption “Breaking In.” That these kinds of images were celebrated
with prizes and publication in Our Dumb Animals reminds us of the diversity
of approaches to animal advocacy during this period. The MSPCA used these
kinds of images to promote their message of kindness and humane treat-
ment of nonhuman animals, but the framework in which these animals were
used for human pursuits, pleasures, and industries remained unchallenged.
AR T IS T S A S AC T I V IS T S
It was not only amateur artists and photographers who were promoted by
advocacy groups. Much was made of professional artists who were also mem-
bers of reform movements. Publications produced by advocacy groups fre-
quently reported information about artists who were involved in making the
world a more compassionate place for nonhuman animals. I have discussed
above how Landseer’s art was favored by animal advocacy groups during this
era, but it is also important to note that Landseer actively spoke up against
cruelty to animals. He served on the executive committee of the RSPCA,
and he was an outspoken critic of what he saw as cruel practices—cropping
the ears of dogs or the tails of horses. Landseer understood very clearly
the connection between representation and the actual lived conditions of
nonhuman animals, and he “invariably refused to paint a cropped dog or a
docked horse.” One of Landseer’s “proudest moments” occurred when he
encountered a man carrying two puppies along Regent Street in London.
The artist stopped and spoke to the man, commending him for the fact that
the puppies had not had their ears cropped. The man, clearly not recognizing
the artist, replied, “Sir Edwin Landseer says they ought not to be cropped.”
This encounter moved Landseer deeply and made him feel that he had “done
something for the cause.”134
Other artists were also active in animal advocacy during this period.
George Frederic Watts was an active member of the Royal Society for the
Protection of Birds, and permitted the group to reproduce his paintings in
their advocacy publications.135 Watts had artistic company in the RSPB—
the “great bird painter” Henry Stacy Marks was among the first to join the
society.136 The well-known English painter Edward Burne-Jones supported
the Victoria Street Society, the antivivisection organization founded by Fran-
ces Power Cobbe in 1875.137 M. R. L. Sharpe, the author of the Golden Rule
Cookbook and active member of the Boston-based Millennium Guild, which
68 Art for Animals
advocated a vegetarian diet for ethical and compassionate reasons, was also
a “decorative artist.”138 Likewise, Henrietta Latham Dwight, the author of
the vegetarian Golden Age Cook Book (1898), was an American artist known
for her watercolor landscapes.
John Ruskin, one of the most celebrated art critics of the day, was also
a staunch supporter of the antivivisection cause, even resigning his pres-
tigious position as Slade Professor of Art at Oxford over the university’s
increasing support of vivisection as a scientific practice. In 1884, Ruskin
made a change to his will in which he removed a bequest of “his books, his
portrait of the Doge Andrea Gritti by Titian, and the choicest of his Turner
drawings,” which he had originally intended to leave to the Bodleian Library
at Oxford. This action was celebrated by antivivisection supporters, who
immediately drew connections between this action and Ruskin’s protests
against the vivisection taking place at Oxford. Like Burne-Jones, Ruskin was
an active member of the Victoria Street Society, and his views on how ani-
mals should be treated informed his teaching of art; he insisted that students
studying drawing should learn the intricacies of animal anatomy through
observation and not through invasive processes such as dissection.139 “Man
is intended to observe with his eyes, and mind,” he said, “not with micro-
scope and knife.”140
The idea that vivisection and artistic concerns could not easily coexist was
also taken up by Lady Walburga Paget, an “antivivisectionist and vegetar-
ian.”141 In 1901, Paget wrote an article arguing that vivisection was antithet-
ical to “the artistic and aesthetic point of view.” Paget argued that “no man
or woman with any sense of beauty could ever be a pro-Vivisectionist,” and
that “every true artist” was necessarily “an opponent of vivisection.” She
specifically issued a challenge to artists “to stand up and vow courageously
and openly their loathing of the cowardly practice.”142 Similarly, Mary Eliza
Haweis, author of such books as The Art of Beauty, The Art of Dress, and
The Art of Decoration, was a staunch supporter of antivivisection efforts.
A feature article on Haweis in the London Star in 1894 juxtaposed her graph-
ically detailed description of vivisection with the art and decoration in her
house—the reporter was glad to be able to look at such “interesting” things
after hearing the “almost too dreadful stories of vivisection.”143
The question of vivisection was especially tricky, as it challenged deeply
held ideas about the relationship between class (e.g., “civilized” behavior) and
cruelty. The idea that cruelty to animals was perpetuated primarily by uned-
ucated working-class people had long been a mainstay of animal advocates.
The belief in the “civilizing” power of art was a testament to this attitude, but
the issue of vivisection presented a major challenge. The high social status of
the doctors, scientists, and medical students who experimented on animals
forced a reconceptualization of the relationship between cruelty and class
position. There were, as a result, art lovers and connoisseurs on both sides
of this debate.
As we have seen, art and visual culture were considered important aspects
of animal advocacy during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Imagery was valued for its educational potential and was understood as an
essential tool in the ongoing struggle to create a kinder, gentler world for all
species. When the RSPCA noted that “the pencils of old masters, and those
of a hundred modern animal painters, among whom Landseer will ever be
prominent, have taught us to love animals, and when we cannot love, to be in
sympathy with them as fellow creatures,” it was aligning itself with broader
social and cultural ideals that saw art and visual culture as instrumental in
building a better world.144
As part of this process, exposure to uplifting images that demonstrated
the difference between “kind” and “cruel” behavior was fostered through the
proliferation of illustrated periodicals, posters, and lantern slides. Reviews of
artworks and exhibitions began to appear on the pages of animal advocacy
publications with increasing frequency as the twentieth century approached.
Certain images were repeated over and over, creating a sense of visual consis-
tency—an iconography of animal advocacy—that united reformers in North
America and Britain. It was also thought that creating art—making posters,
learning how to draw or sculpt, taking photographs of animals—would also
help foster humane behavior and ideas, and so this kind of activity was pro-
moted by animal advocacy organizations as well.
This chapter has established the significance of art and visual culture to
organized animal advocacy during this period. In the remaining chapters,
I break down the use of imagery further, considering the different kinds of
images that were used and where these images were encountered.

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Perhaps it all started with a picture, a simple watercolor painting hanging on

Fig. 5 Sir Francis Burdett and

fountain to honor Greyfriars Bobby in Edinburgh, and was “a generous con-

to situations where kindness to animals was actively taught and fostered.

In A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society, a large black-​and-​white

also, several decades later, be taken up by a number of animal advocacy

found fault with some of Landseer’s productions because, as they assert,

G ALLERIE S, MUSEUMS, AND E XH IBI T IONS

The use of visual culture in animal advocacy can be seen as an extension of

Fig. 9 Marianne Stokes, A Parting, 1884. Image © National

animals became normalized through educational and outreach campaigns,

Stokes has been described as “a painter of keen apprehension in simple

that it “brings graphically before us the folly of driving affrighted animals

Fig. 12 Charles John Tomkins,

IMP OR TAN CE OF ILL US T R AT IONS

her generous support of all good causes”—allowed for “a really well-​designed

Fig. 13 Kindness to Sheep on a Cattle-​Train. Published in J. George

HUM ANE EDUC AT ION AND V ISUAL CULT URE

The Band of Mercy movement was an important part of humane education,

Proponents of humane education and animal welfare frequently incorpo-

technologies as lantern slides to bring the theme of “kindness to animals”

rock. No argument or persuasion will induce the gifted or educated sculp-

species was prominent throughout humane education efforts in the late

Ingersoll also argued that the experience of seeing a photograph of a living

The resulting photograph, in other words, could bring aesthetic enjoyment

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In A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society, a large black-and-white

her generous support of all good causes”—allowed for “a really well-designed

Fig. 13 Kindness to Sheep on a Cattle-Train. Published in J. George