Egyptian Slinger
EGYPTIAN SLINGER (1875)
The most recent criticism of importance on the art of Leighton is contained in an admirable volume by M. de la Sizeranne.[13]We take this opportunity of quoting a few sentences from an appreciation which opens with the significant remark that Sir Frederic Leighton is officially the representative of English painting on the Continent, and, in reality, the representative of Continental painting in England, and concludes by tracing the definitely English ideal that underlies the artist's work. Elsewhere the critic says, "Ce qui est britannique en M. Leighton, quoique bien voilé par son éclectisme, transparaîtra encore." Apart from Leighton's distinctively native predilection for certain subjects, M. de la Sizeranne finds him very English in his treatment of draperies, for instance, a treatment which he traces ingeniously to the much study given to the Greek drapery of the Elgin marbles by the English School, since the days of the Pre-Raphaelites. Elsewhere, taking as his text the pictureThe Spirit of the Summit, he says: "Des sujets qui élèvent la pensée vers les sommets de la vie ou de l'histoire, de sorte qu'on ne puisse se rappeler un nez ou une jambe sans se souvenir de quelque haute leçon évangélique, ou de moins de quelque grande nécessité sociale, voilà ce que M. Leighton a traité. Et un style beaucoup plus sobre que celui d'Overbeck, beaucoup plus viril que celui de M. Bouguereau, voilà comment il lesa traités." Again: "La grandeur de la communion humaine, la noblesse de la paix, tel est le thème qui a le plus souvent et le mieux inspiré M. Leighton. Et cela il ne l'a pas trouvé en France, ni ailleurs. C'est bien une idée anglaise." No better summing up of the chronicle of the life work of the artist could well be found.
But we have pursued far enough this study of an artist's progress through the thorny, devious ways of art criticism. We have reached the point, in fact, where the comparative uncertainties of an artist's career make way for the certainties. With one quotation more, in which we have a tribute from another critic, Mr. Comyns Carr, we may fitly close: "No painter of our time," said Mr. Carr, "maintains a firmer or more constant adherence to those severe principles of design which have received the sanction of great example in the past. Sir Frederic Leighton has never lowered the standard of his work in deference to any popular demand, and for this persistent devotion to his own highest ideals he deserves well of all who share his faith in the power of beauty."
Elisha and the Shunamite's Son
ELISHA AND THE SHUNAMITE'S SON (1881)
Innow bringing this record to a close, we will of set purpose remain true to the chronicler's function, pure and simple; attempting no profounder or more critical summing up of our subject, than consists with the plain record of a remarkable career.
After a year of indifferent health, during part of which time he was ordered abroad for rest and change, being thus unable to preside at the annual banquet in May, Leighton returned to England apparently convalescent. Although unable to deliver the biennial presidential address, which fell due in December, 1895, he met the students on that occasion, and apologized for not delivering the Discourse which was due, in these words: "The cloud which has hung over me hangs over me still."[14]
Early in 1896 a peerage was bestowed upon him, and all the world applauded the honour conferred on Art in his name. On January 13th, 1896, the news of his death came as a terrible surprise. The new peer, Baron Leighton of Stretton, was buried with much state at St. Paul's Cathedral, before men in general had wholly recognized that Lord Leighton was the popular "Sir Frederic," the President of the Royal Academy, and one of the most familiar figures at any important function—at court or elsewhere.
Except perhaps in the case of politicians, who live in some degree by the public recognition of their personal qualities, it is difficult to render tribute gracefully and well to a contemporary. But we cannot close these pages, now, without pausing to recall how fortunate it has been that English Art, for seventeen years, had as its titular head an artist whose affluent artistic faculty was but the open sign of a crowded life, loyal throughout to the great causes, high ideals, and, let us add, the early friendships, chosen long ago in the mid century. We are now at that century's end,—an end not without its reproach, as expressed by a decadence more self-conscious than dignified, more critical than creative; but in Lord Leighton's Art there was little diminution in his active energy, and of that finer health and spirit of life, which is behind all beauty! Like his distinguished friend and colleague, Mr. G. F. Watts (whose tribute to him as a man and as an artist has been expressed again and again in eloquent terms), Leighton remained, in his later period as in his youth, generously alive to all the things that count, devoted still to the Art, the current life, and the great national traditions, of his own country.
From another famous colleague, Sir E. J. Poynter, P.R.A., one may fitly add here the following further sentences of contemporary tribute, which were written by way of dedication to his "Ten Lectures on Art," published some years ago:—"I came to-day from the 'Varnishing Day' at the Royal Academy Exhibition with a pleasant conviction that there is on all sides a more decided tendency towards a higher standard in Art, both as regards treatment of subject and execution, than I have before noticed; and I have no hesitation in attributing this sudden improvement in the main to the stimulus given to us all by the election of our newPresident, and to the influence of the energy, thoroughness and nobility of aim which he displays in everything he undertakes. I was probably the first, when we were both young and in Rome together, to whom he had the opportunity of showing the disinterested kindness which he has invariably extended to beginners, and to him, as the friend and master who first directed my ambition, and whose precepts I never fail to recall when at work (as many another will recall them), I venture to dedicate this book with affection and respect."
"As we are, so our work is!" said Leighton in one of the most memorable of his Discourses; "and the moral effect of what we are will control the artist's work from the first touch of the brush or chisel to the last." "Believe me," he concludes, in a striking passage that may very fitly serve us, too, with a conclusion to these passages, "believe me, whatever of dignity, whatever of strength we have within us, will dignify and will make strong the labours of our hands; whatever littleness degrades our spirit will lessen them and drag them down. Whatever noble fire is in our hearts will burn also in our work, whatever purity is ours will also chasten and exalt it; for as we are, so our work is, and what we sow in our lives, that, beyond a doubt, we shall reap for good or for ill in the strengthening or defacing of whatever gifts have fallen to our lot."
It would be superfluous to quote from the elegiac tributes which appeared in the public press after Lord Leighton's death, and invidious to repeat certain unkind and unjust strictures which marred the otherwise unanimous note of appreciation. It is obvious that an artist with so strongly marked a personality must needs have been fettered by the very limits he himself had set. At one time, when a painter of eminence openly expressedhis preference for Lord Leighton's unfinished work, and begged him to keep a certain picture as "a beautiful sketch," he replied: "No, I shall finish it, and probably, as you suggest, spoil it. To complete satisfactorily is what we painters live for. I am not a great painter, but I am always striving to finish my work up to my first conception."
There are many mansions in the city of Art, and if the one of Lord Leighton's building was not to the taste of all his contemporaries, the edifice can be left to await the final test of years. Fashions in taste change rapidly, and much of his finish that finds disfavour to-day may in time charm once again. A career overburdened by official honour was destined to provoke a certain amount of envious protest; but as a man, no voice has urged a word against his ideally perfect performance, not merely of his official duties, but of others which indeed were laid upon him by his position. These he obeyed without ostentation—almost without men's knowledge. His kindly help, by commendation or by commission given to young artists; his broad and tolerant view of work conceived in direct opposition to all he valued himself, was not hidden from his friends. "It is with a sense of amazement," a critic writes in a private letter, "that one afternoon after a protest that nothing he said was to be published, I heard him discuss the prospects and the works of our ultra-modern painters. Even in fields beyond his sympathy he picked out the chaff from the wheat, and was judicially accurate in his verdicts of the difference between 'tweedle-dum' and 'tweedle-dee,' both one would have said, entirely unknown to him."
In Lord Leighton British artists lost a truer friend than many of them suspected, one who wielded his power justly to all, and was more often on the side ofprogress than not, a power for reform that can never be estimated at its actual value, working within a highly conservative body, full of vested interests and prejudice—as is the habit of academies of Art and Literature abroad no less than at home. That Leighton, who controlled its destinies so long, was loyal to its true interests, and never forgot the institution with which he was associated so many years is evident from his last words: "Give my love to all at the Academy."
Bookplate of Lord Leighton
Bookplate of Lord Leighton. Designed by R. Anning Bell.
With date and place of exhibition