A Random Shot

A Random Shot (1848) is among Landseer's most emotionally intense animal paintings, depicting a deer that has been hit by a stray bullet — a 'random shot' — and lies dying in the snow while its young calf or fawn stands beside it, bewildered. The work exploits the Romantic tradition of pathetic nature — the suffering or death of animals as a vehicle for emotional response — more directly than almost any of Landseer's other works. Bury Art Museum holds this canvas, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1848 to considerable emotional impact. The combination of dying mother and innocent offspring was calculated to maximize viewer distress, and contemporary critics found it almost unbearably affecting — testimony both to Landseer's skill and to Victorian sentimentality about animals.

Canvas with the full technical resources of Landseer's maturity deployed to maximize emotional impact: the dying deer's posture of collapse, the snow stained with blood, the fawn's bewildered proximity, all rendered with merciless precision. The snowy landscape setting amplifies the isolation and helplessness of the scene.