Chapter 2

I first met Leighton about 1869 or '70, I think. I went to one of his receptions at the Studio in Holland Park Road, at the time he was showing his pictures for the Academy. I think his principal work of that year was "Alcestis," or "Heracles Wrestling with Death." About the same time Browning's poem of "Balaustion's Adventure" appeared, in which he alludes to Leighton and this very picture in the lines beginning:"I know a great Kaunian painter"(if I remember rightly).I availed myself of a friend's introduction, and presented myself. One recalls the courteous and princely way in which he received his guests on these occasions, and the crushes he had at his studio—Holland Park Road blocked with carriages, and all the great ones of the London world flocking to see the artist's work.About this time, or shortly before, he had done me the honour to purchase two landscape studies I had made in Wales from among a number in a book, which was shown him by my early friend George Howard (now Earl of Carlisle), and I remember his kind words in sending me what he deemed "the very modest price" I had asked for them.His kindness to students and young artists was well known. He would take trouble to go and see their work, and he was always an admirable and helpful critic.I remember, on my first visit to Rome in the autumn of 1871 (on our marriage tour), going into Piali's Library one evening to look at the English papers. No one was there, but presently Leighton came in. He did not remember me at first, but I recalled myself to him. He was very kind, in his princely way, and gave me introductions to W.W. Storey, the sculptor, and his great friend, Giov. Costa, and he called at our rooms to see my work, in which he showed much interest. In a letter I had, dated March 1st, 1872, written from the Athenæum Club, he speaks of some drawings I had sent to the Dudley Gallery, one he had seen on my easel in Rome, and he says: "I have seen your drawings, all three—one was an old friend; of the other two, the 'Grotto of Egeria,' with its 'sacrum numes,' most attracted me through its refined and sober harmony.The quality of your lightis always particularly agreeable to me, and not less than usual in these drawings"; he goes on to say he is glad to hear I have "made friends with my excellent Costa, who as an artist is one in hundreds, and as a man one in thousands"; he adds, "Have you sketched in the 'Valley of Poussin'? It strikes me that old castle would take you by storm."I saw Leighton again in Rome in 1873, meeting him on the Palatine, among the ruins of the Palace of the Cæsars. He was with a lady who, I believe, was the author of the story published inThe Cornhill, "A Week in a French Country House," for which Leighton made an illustration. (His black and white work was always very fine, and I recall seeing some of his drawings on the wood for Dalziel's Bible and "Romola.")Later, he came to see us when we settled in London, in Wood Lane.I had further relations with him about the time he was building the Arab Hall, when (through George Aitcheson, his architect) I designed the mosaic frieze. On some sketches I made for this he writes: "Cleave to the Sphinx and Eagle, they aredelightful—I don't like the duck-women." With regard to these Arab Hall mosaics, he said that he hoped to have more,and eventually "to let us loose (Burne-Jones and myself) on the dome."After this, I saw something of Leighton on the committee of the South London Fine Art Gallery, Peckham, in its earlier days, when he was chairman, and helped to pilot the institution from the somewhat exacting proprietorship of its founder towards its ultimate position as a public institution.From the aristocratic point of view, he certainly had a keen sense of public duty, and probably laid the motto "Noblesse oblige" to heart.I met him again at the Art Conference at Liverpool, when a trainful of artists of all ranks went down together, and some notable attacks were made on the Royal Academy. Leighton was tremendously loyal to that institution, which I notice is always stoutly defended by its members, whatever opinions they may have expressed while outsiders.I suppose we differed profoundly on most questions, but he was always most courteous, and, whatever our public opinions, we always maintained friendly personal relations; and I may say I always entertained the highest admiration for Leighton's qualities, both as an artist and as a man.At the time when the election for the presidency of the Academy was in view (after the death of Sir Francis Grant), it was said that Leighton was theonlyman, and that if they did not elect him the institution would go to pieces; but probably as president he had less power of initiative than before.I remember, after one of our committees at his studio, he drove me home to Holland Street in his victoria; and as he set me down at my door, he pointed to a little copper lantern I had put up over the steps, and said, "Is that Arts and Crafts?"His fondness for Italy was well known, and I think he went every autumn. I recall meeting him at Florence in 1890, while staying at the delightful villa of Mrs. Ross (Poggio Gherardo), when he came to luncheon.In death he was as princely as in life; and on the day of his burial at St. Paul's I was moved to write the following as a tribute to his memory, which will always be vivid in the hearts of those who had the privilege of his friendship:—Beneath great London's dome to his last restThe princely painter have ye borne away,Who still in death upholds his sumptuous sway;Who strove in life with learned skill to wrestArt's priceless secret hid in Beauty's breastWith alchemy of colour and of clay,To recreate a fairer human day,Touched by no shadow of our time distrest.What rank or privilege needs art supreme—Immortal child of buried states and powers—Who can for us the golden age renew?Let worth and work bear witness when life's hoursAre numbered: honour due, when, as we deem,To his ideal was the artist true.Walter Crane.

"I know a great Kaunian painter"

(if I remember rightly).

I availed myself of a friend's introduction, and presented myself. One recalls the courteous and princely way in which he received his guests on these occasions, and the crushes he had at his studio—Holland Park Road blocked with carriages, and all the great ones of the London world flocking to see the artist's work.

About this time, or shortly before, he had done me the honour to purchase two landscape studies I had made in Wales from among a number in a book, which was shown him by my early friend George Howard (now Earl of Carlisle), and I remember his kind words in sending me what he deemed "the very modest price" I had asked for them.

His kindness to students and young artists was well known. He would take trouble to go and see their work, and he was always an admirable and helpful critic.

I remember, on my first visit to Rome in the autumn of 1871 (on our marriage tour), going into Piali's Library one evening to look at the English papers. No one was there, but presently Leighton came in. He did not remember me at first, but I recalled myself to him. He was very kind, in his princely way, and gave me introductions to W.W. Storey, the sculptor, and his great friend, Giov. Costa, and he called at our rooms to see my work, in which he showed much interest. In a letter I had, dated March 1st, 1872, written from the Athenæum Club, he speaks of some drawings I had sent to the Dudley Gallery, one he had seen on my easel in Rome, and he says: "I have seen your drawings, all three—one was an old friend; of the other two, the 'Grotto of Egeria,' with its 'sacrum numes,' most attracted me through its refined and sober harmony.The quality of your lightis always particularly agreeable to me, and not less than usual in these drawings"; he goes on to say he is glad to hear I have "made friends with my excellent Costa, who as an artist is one in hundreds, and as a man one in thousands"; he adds, "Have you sketched in the 'Valley of Poussin'? It strikes me that old castle would take you by storm."

I saw Leighton again in Rome in 1873, meeting him on the Palatine, among the ruins of the Palace of the Cæsars. He was with a lady who, I believe, was the author of the story published inThe Cornhill, "A Week in a French Country House," for which Leighton made an illustration. (His black and white work was always very fine, and I recall seeing some of his drawings on the wood for Dalziel's Bible and "Romola.")

Later, he came to see us when we settled in London, in Wood Lane.

I had further relations with him about the time he was building the Arab Hall, when (through George Aitcheson, his architect) I designed the mosaic frieze. On some sketches I made for this he writes: "Cleave to the Sphinx and Eagle, they aredelightful—I don't like the duck-women." With regard to these Arab Hall mosaics, he said that he hoped to have more,and eventually "to let us loose (Burne-Jones and myself) on the dome."

After this, I saw something of Leighton on the committee of the South London Fine Art Gallery, Peckham, in its earlier days, when he was chairman, and helped to pilot the institution from the somewhat exacting proprietorship of its founder towards its ultimate position as a public institution.

From the aristocratic point of view, he certainly had a keen sense of public duty, and probably laid the motto "Noblesse oblige" to heart.

I met him again at the Art Conference at Liverpool, when a trainful of artists of all ranks went down together, and some notable attacks were made on the Royal Academy. Leighton was tremendously loyal to that institution, which I notice is always stoutly defended by its members, whatever opinions they may have expressed while outsiders.

I suppose we differed profoundly on most questions, but he was always most courteous, and, whatever our public opinions, we always maintained friendly personal relations; and I may say I always entertained the highest admiration for Leighton's qualities, both as an artist and as a man.

At the time when the election for the presidency of the Academy was in view (after the death of Sir Francis Grant), it was said that Leighton was theonlyman, and that if they did not elect him the institution would go to pieces; but probably as president he had less power of initiative than before.

I remember, after one of our committees at his studio, he drove me home to Holland Street in his victoria; and as he set me down at my door, he pointed to a little copper lantern I had put up over the steps, and said, "Is that Arts and Crafts?"

His fondness for Italy was well known, and I think he went every autumn. I recall meeting him at Florence in 1890, while staying at the delightful villa of Mrs. Ross (Poggio Gherardo), when he came to luncheon.

In death he was as princely as in life; and on the day of his burial at St. Paul's I was moved to write the following as a tribute to his memory, which will always be vivid in the hearts of those who had the privilege of his friendship:—

Beneath great London's dome to his last restThe princely painter have ye borne away,Who still in death upholds his sumptuous sway;Who strove in life with learned skill to wrestArt's priceless secret hid in Beauty's breastWith alchemy of colour and of clay,To recreate a fairer human day,Touched by no shadow of our time distrest.What rank or privilege needs art supreme—Immortal child of buried states and powers—Who can for us the golden age renew?Let worth and work bear witness when life's hoursAre numbered: honour due, when, as we deem,To his ideal was the artist true.Walter Crane.

What rank or privilege needs art supreme—Immortal child of buried states and powers—Who can for us the golden age renew?Let worth and work bear witness when life's hoursAre numbered: honour due, when, as we deem,To his ideal was the artist true.

Walter Crane.

EUCHARIS."EUCHARIS." 1863By permission of Mrs. Stephenson ClarkeToList

"EUCHARIS." 1863By permission of Mrs. Stephenson ClarkeToList

Having settled in England in 1860, Leighton found that there, contrary to his expectations, his sense of colour became developed; and with this his individuality as apainterasserted itself. Between the years 1863 and 1866 he painted pictures which proved that, as a distinct artificer in painting, he had found himself, and was no longer under the controlling influences of German or Italian Art, though, unfortunately, hints of German methods in the actual manipulation of his brush clung more or less to his painting to the end. From boyhood Leighton's power of designing, his sense of beauty in line and form and of dramatic feeling, his extraordinary facility in drawing with the point, proved his genius as an artist; but it was not till the early sixties that his pictures proved him to be possessed of individual distinction as a painter, probably because the method of handling the brush associated with the teaching which, in other respects, commanded his reverence and admiration, were alien to his finest artistic sense. No later works are to be found more notable in luminous quality of painting than "Eucharis," 1863, and "Golden Hours," 1864; none in strength andsolidity of texture, or in beauty of distinguished handling, than "A Noble Lady of Venice," about 1865; none in richness of arrangement combined with the fair aerial atmosphere appropriate to a Grecian scene, for which Leighton had so native a sympathy, than "A Syracusan Bride Leading Wild Beasts in Procession to the Altar of Diana," 1866.[1]Later works may claim a greater public prominence among his achievements, but for actual individuality and feeling for the beauty which appealed most strongly to Leighton in colour as in form, none he painted after evinced any fresh departure.

A NOBLE LADY OF VENICE"A NOBLE LADY OF VENICE." 1866By permission of Lord ArmstrongToList

"A NOBLE LADY OF VENICE." 1866By permission of Lord ArmstrongToList

As early as 1852, at the age of twenty-one, Leighton wrote to Steinle from Venice: "I must candidly confess that great as my admiration for Titian (& Co.) was, yet the well-known art treasures here have seized me and entranced me anew. You, dear master, are so familiar with all these things that there is nothing I can write you about them; but on one point I am fairly clear, namely, that the admirers and imitators of Titian (particularly the latest) seek his charms quite in the wrong place, and I am convinced that the impressiveness of his painting lies far less in the ardour of his colouring than in the stupendous accuracy and execution of the modelling." In another letter to Steinle he refers to the necessity of mastering the capacities of the brush in order to render form in a complete manner independently of the function of the brush to render colour.

"Those who place the brush behind the pencil, under the pretence thatformis before all things, make a very great mistake. Formis certainly all important; one cannot study it enough;butthe greater part offormfalls within the province of the tabooedbrush. The everlasting hobby ofcontour(which belongs to the drawing material) is first theplacewhere theformcomes in; what, however, reveals true knowledge of form, is a powerful, organic, refined finish of modelling, full of feeling and knowledge—and that is the affair of the brush (Pinsel)."

In January 1860 Leighton wrote to Steinle: "You will perhaps be surprised, but, in spite of my fanatic preference for colour I promised myself to be a draughtsman before I became a colourist," and in fact Leighton was fighting,throughout his whole career, against allowing the sensuous qualities in his art to override those which the teaching of Steinle had proved to his nature to be the most truly elevating and ennobling. Up to the age of thirty he had been overshadowed by the influence of others in the matter of actual technique in painting. From the time he settled in London he freed himself from the tutelage of all masters. As we have read in his letters, his intention was to do so in 1856 when he painted "The Triumph of Music;" but at that time he failed in finding his real self in his painting of that picture, and fully realised that he mustreculer pour mieux sauter, returning in the autumn of that year to Rome to be fed by the greatest art of the past, and to study again, "face to face with Nature—to follow it, to watch it, and to copy, closely, faithfully, ingenuously—as Ruskin suggests, choosing nothing and rejecting nothing." The studies of a Pumpkin Flower (Meran), Branch of Vine (Bellosquardo), Cyclamen (Tivoli), reproduced in Chapter III., and others, were made during this autumn of 1856.

In a letter written to Mr. M. Spielmann, a few years before his death, Leighton describes the procedure he pursued in accomplishing a serious work.

"In my pictures,—which are above all decorations in the real sense of the word,—the design is a pattern in which every line has its place and its proper relation to other lines, so that the disturbing of one of them, outside certain limits, would throw the whole out of gear. Having thus determined my picture in my mind's eye, in the majority of cases I make a sketch in black and white chalk upon brown paper to fix it. In the first sketch the care with which the folds have been broadly arranged will be evident, and if it be compared with the finished picture, the very slight degree in which the general scheme has been departed from will convince the spectator of the almost scientific precision of my line of action. But there is a good reason for this determining of the draperies before the model is called in; and it isthis. The nude model, no matter how practised he or she may be never moves or stands or sits, in these degenerate days, with exactly the same freedom as when draped; action or pose is always different—not so much from a sense of mental constraint as from the unusual liberty experienced by the limbs to which the muscular action invariably responds when the body is released from the discipline and confinement of clothing."The picture having been thus determined, the model is called in, and is posed as nearly as possible in the attitude desired. As nearly as possible, I say; for, as no two faces are exactly alike, so no two models ever entirely resemble one another in body or muscular action, and cannot, therefore, pose in such a manner as exactly to correspond with either another model or another figure—no matter how correctly the latter may be drawn. From the model make the careful outline on brown paper, a true transcript from life, which may entail some slight corrections of the original design in the direction of modifying the attitude and general appearance of the figure. This would be rendered necessary probably by the bulk and material of the drapery. So far, of course, my attention is engaged exclusively by 'form,' colour being always treated more or less ideally. The figure is now placed in its surroundings, and established in exact relation to the canvas. The result is the first true sketch of the entire design, figure, and background, and is built up of the two previous ones. It must be absolutely accurate in the distribution of spaces, for it has subsequently to be 'squared off' on to the canvas, which is ordered to the exact scale of the sketch. At this moment, the design being finally determined, the sketch in oil colours is made. It has been deferred till now, because the placing of the colours is, of course, of as much importance as the harmony. This done, the canvas is for the first time produced, and thereon I enlarge the design, re-draw the outline—and never departing a hair's-breadth from the outlines and forms already obtained—and then highly finishing the whole figure in warm monochrome from the life. Every muscle, every joint, every crease is there, although all this careful painting is shortly to be hidden with the draperies; such, however, is the only method of insuring absolute correctness of drawing. The fourthstage completed, I return once more to my brown paper, re-copy the outline accurately from the picture, on a larger scale than before, and resume my studies of draperies in greater detail and with still greater precision, dealing with them in sections, as parts of a homogeneous whole. The draperies are now laid with infinite care on to the living model, and are made to approximate as closely as possible to the arrangement given in the first sketch, which, as it was not haphazard, but most carefully worked out, must of necessity be adhered to. They have often to be drawn piecemeal, as a model cannot by any means always retain the attitude sufficiently long for the design to be wholly carried out at one cast.[2]This arrangement, is effected with special reference to painting—that is to say, giving not only form and light and shade, but also the relation and 'values' of tones. The draperies are drawn over, and made to conform exactly to the forms copied from the nudes of the underpainted picture. This is a cardinal point, because in carrying out the picture the folds are found fitting mathematically on to the nude, or nudes, first established on the canvas. The next step then is to transfer the draperies to the canvas on which the design has been squared off, and this is done with flowing colour in the same monochrome as before over the nudes, to which they are intelligently applied, and which nudes must never—mentally at least—be lost sight of. The canvas has been prepared with a grey tone, lighter or darker, according to the subject in hand, and the effect to be produced. The background and accessories being now added, the whole picture presents a more or less completed aspect—resembling that, say, of a print of any warm tone. In the case of draperies of very vigorous tone, a rich flat local colour is probably rubbed over them, the modelling underneath being, though thin, so sharp and definite as to assert itself through this wash. Certain portions of the picture might probably be prepared with a wash of flattinting of a colour the opposite of that which it is eventually to receive. A blue sky, for instance, would possibly have a soft, ruddy tone spread over the canvas—the sky, which is a very definite and important part of my compositions, being as completely drawn in monochrome as any other of the design; or, for rich blue mountains a strong orange wash or tint might be used as a bed. The structure of the picture being thus absolutely complete, and the effect distinctly determined by a sketch which it is my aim to equal in the big work, I have nothing to think of but colour, and with that I now proceed deliberately, but rapidly."

"The picture having been thus determined, the model is called in, and is posed as nearly as possible in the attitude desired. As nearly as possible, I say; for, as no two faces are exactly alike, so no two models ever entirely resemble one another in body or muscular action, and cannot, therefore, pose in such a manner as exactly to correspond with either another model or another figure—no matter how correctly the latter may be drawn. From the model make the careful outline on brown paper, a true transcript from life, which may entail some slight corrections of the original design in the direction of modifying the attitude and general appearance of the figure. This would be rendered necessary probably by the bulk and material of the drapery. So far, of course, my attention is engaged exclusively by 'form,' colour being always treated more or less ideally. The figure is now placed in its surroundings, and established in exact relation to the canvas. The result is the first true sketch of the entire design, figure, and background, and is built up of the two previous ones. It must be absolutely accurate in the distribution of spaces, for it has subsequently to be 'squared off' on to the canvas, which is ordered to the exact scale of the sketch. At this moment, the design being finally determined, the sketch in oil colours is made. It has been deferred till now, because the placing of the colours is, of course, of as much importance as the harmony. This done, the canvas is for the first time produced, and thereon I enlarge the design, re-draw the outline—and never departing a hair's-breadth from the outlines and forms already obtained—and then highly finishing the whole figure in warm monochrome from the life. Every muscle, every joint, every crease is there, although all this careful painting is shortly to be hidden with the draperies; such, however, is the only method of insuring absolute correctness of drawing. The fourthstage completed, I return once more to my brown paper, re-copy the outline accurately from the picture, on a larger scale than before, and resume my studies of draperies in greater detail and with still greater precision, dealing with them in sections, as parts of a homogeneous whole. The draperies are now laid with infinite care on to the living model, and are made to approximate as closely as possible to the arrangement given in the first sketch, which, as it was not haphazard, but most carefully worked out, must of necessity be adhered to. They have often to be drawn piecemeal, as a model cannot by any means always retain the attitude sufficiently long for the design to be wholly carried out at one cast.[2]This arrangement, is effected with special reference to painting—that is to say, giving not only form and light and shade, but also the relation and 'values' of tones. The draperies are drawn over, and made to conform exactly to the forms copied from the nudes of the underpainted picture. This is a cardinal point, because in carrying out the picture the folds are found fitting mathematically on to the nude, or nudes, first established on the canvas. The next step then is to transfer the draperies to the canvas on which the design has been squared off, and this is done with flowing colour in the same monochrome as before over the nudes, to which they are intelligently applied, and which nudes must never—mentally at least—be lost sight of. The canvas has been prepared with a grey tone, lighter or darker, according to the subject in hand, and the effect to be produced. The background and accessories being now added, the whole picture presents a more or less completed aspect—resembling that, say, of a print of any warm tone. In the case of draperies of very vigorous tone, a rich flat local colour is probably rubbed over them, the modelling underneath being, though thin, so sharp and definite as to assert itself through this wash. Certain portions of the picture might probably be prepared with a wash of flattinting of a colour the opposite of that which it is eventually to receive. A blue sky, for instance, would possibly have a soft, ruddy tone spread over the canvas—the sky, which is a very definite and important part of my compositions, being as completely drawn in monochrome as any other of the design; or, for rich blue mountains a strong orange wash or tint might be used as a bed. The structure of the picture being thus absolutely complete, and the effect distinctly determined by a sketch which it is my aim to equal in the big work, I have nothing to think of but colour, and with that I now proceed deliberately, but rapidly."

So far Leighton explained the conscious processes he went through in creating his pictures; but does this explanation record truly the real agencies which brought about the result we see in his finest achievements? I should say no,—most emphatically no. Where we can trace the sign of these processes, there the picture fails in the power of convincing. No such process produced "Eucharis" nor the "Syracusan Bride." The process may have been gone through in painting the procession, but it is obliterated by touches instinct with a true painter's inspiration. Allteachablequalities Leighton couldteachon the lines of soundest principles. His extreme modesty left others to find out that where his preaching left off the real work began in his own pictures. No one knew better than Leighton that no theoretic knowledge ever made an artist; no teachable processes ever made a beautiful picture; no one knew better that head without heart never produced any work that was truly cared for.

"God forgive me if I am intolerant," he wrote to Steinle, "but according to my view an artist must produce his art out of his own heart; or he is none."

"The chord that wakes in kindred hearts a tone,Must first be tuned and vibrate in your own"

were the words with which he ended his first address to the students of the Royal Academy.

In the world's estimate of things and people, classification plays at times a pernicious part. Classification in art matters may be tolerated as useful only in the education of the non-artistic. Invariably the most convincing touches escape the possibility of being reduced to so dull a process of reckoning. Art marked by individual spontaneity, emanating from the ego of the artificer, refuses to be levelled down into a class. Critics seem at times to be strongly tempted to fit an artist's achievements into certain classes, because they have previously made up their minds as to the class the work belongs to. Hence the perversion often of even an intelligent critic's estimate: certain squarenesses exist which will not fit into round holes, so, for the sake of classification, the corners must be shaved off. Surely no artist ever existed who evaded being comfortably fitted into either a square or a round hole more completely than did Leighton. Every serious work he undertook was an entirely separate performance from any previous invention—a new venture throughout—and, once decided on, carried through with absolute conformity to the original conception. Therefore any classification, beyond his mere method of working, is more sterile in producing a just estimate of Leighton's art than of those workers who are in the habit of painting pictures in which the same motive recurs. Essentially original in his conceptions as in his aims, and vibrating with receptiveness, he sounded nevertheless every impression he received by unchanging principles adhered to as implicit guides. He had within him at once the steadiest rock as a foundation, and the most fertile of serial growths on the surface. Abiding rock and surface flora alike had had their earliest nurture, it must be remembered, in foreign parts, under other skies than that of our veiled English light—under other influences of nature and of art than that of our English climate and schooling—and it is partly owing to this fact that it is not realised by those who have never seen nature under the aspectswhich most delighted him, that Leighton's conceptions were directly and invariably inspired by nature. Those who are conversant with Italy and other Southern countries will possess the key to much that is misjudged by others in Leighton's work. Scenes which entranced his sensibilities as a boy, and, lingering ever in his fancy, gave subjects for his paintings when his art was mature, may appear to one without special knowledge of the South as mere echoes of classic art. When he was thirty-one Leighton exhibited the picture "Lieder ohne Worte."[3]It is no record, probably, of any particular place, nor of any particular fountain; but when strolling on a road in or near a southern town or village in Italy, a view which might originally have inspired the motive may be seen at any moment. Encased in a wall near Albano is a fountain which certainly recalled to me the picture as, in the bright light of a May morning, the song of nightingales in the grand foliage of overhanging magnolia trees echoed the sound of the water springing from the glistening lip, and flowing over the clean curve of the marble basin into the trough below. There was the same lion's head which served as spout, the same arrangement of ornament encircling it; also a finely shaped pitcher placed below to catch the water, and—more recalling than any detail—was the echo of the real motive of the picture—the dream-like poetry of the sunlit scene, with the musical accompaniment of trickling water. Had Leighton painted a Discobolus, it would probably never have occurred to most English critics that nature and living action had inspired the work. Above the lake of Albano is a road—"the Upper Gallery"—where every day are to be met men playing the game. Any one watching it may see repeated over and over again the action in the well-known statue. Nature inspired the creations of the great ancients, andit was also invariably first-hand impressions from nature that inspired Leighton's creations, whatever superstructure of learning he added in the course of their development. Living in Italy when his feelings were most sensitive to impressions, the origin of the suggestions he imbibed is to be found in her atmosphere, colouring, and the scenes which surrounded him when his imagination was most free and fertile. Later, when he lived in England, his travels in Italy and Greece supplied him with the subjects for the most beautiful sketches he made direct from nature. No one, I believe, has ever painted the luminous quality of white, as it is seen under heated sunlight in the South, with the same charm as Leighton. The sketches he made of buildings in Capri[4]are quite marvellously true in their rendering of such effects. He made equally beautiful studies of mountains and sea, under the rarefied atmosphere of Greece. He seemed always happiest, I think, when the key of his pictures and sketches was light and sunlit; in such pictures, for instance, as "Winding the Skein," "Greek Girls Picking up Shells by the Seashore," "Bath of Psyche," "Invocation," and others remarkable for their fairness and their light, pure tone.

Leighton's sympathies were adverse to the more sensuous qualities in painting. Often, in discussing the works by Watts, he would strongly discourage those who were, he considered, unduly influenced by the charm of the great painter's quality and texture, from endeavouring to aim at it in their own work. Such a treatment, Leighton maintained, might be legitimate as the natural expression of the intuitive genius of one gifted individual, but was not the treatment to copy by the student on account of any intrinsic merit. He had almost an aversion to any process which obtained effects through roughness and inequality of surface. His genuine youthful predilection, whichhe retained consistently throughout his life, was for the early Italian art and Italian method of paintingal fresco. "To see the old Florentine school again is a thing which always enchants me anew, for one can never be sated with seeing the noble sweetness, the child-like simplicity, allied with high manly feeling, which breathes in it. But I speak to you of plain things which you know far better than I."—(Letter to Steinle from Florence, 1857.)

GREEK GIRLS PICKING UP SHELLS BY THE SEASHOREGREEK GIRLS PICKING UP SHELLS BY THE SEASHORE. 1871By permission of The Right Hon. Joseph ChamberlainToList

GREEK GIRLS PICKING UP SHELLS BY THE SEASHORE. 1871By permission of The Right Hon. Joseph ChamberlainToList

After Leighton became President of the Royal Academy he made Perugia his halting-place for some weeks during his autumn travels, while he wrote his biennial discourses for the students. He invariably stayed at the well-known Brufani Hotel,—Mrs. Brufani, with whom he made great friends, always reserving the same two rooms for him, from the windows of which he could watch the sun set behind the glorious piles of Umbrian mountains to the west of Perugia. From these windows he also made sketches in silver point of the distant ranges, each form modelled with exquisite delicacy and perfection, though in faintest tones. Other inmates of the Brufani supposed he lived in his two rooms, as he was seldom seen elsewhere in the hotel; but Leighton had found a restaurant which, like his old quarters in Rome—theCafé Greco—was the resort of the artists living in Perugia. There he would lunch, and then repair to the Sala del Cambio. Sitting on the raised seat near the window, he would, day after day, spend an hour or more revelling in the beauty of the frescoes by Perugino. Then he would mount to the Pinacoteca and take a deep draught of enjoyment from the tempera paintings of Perugino's master, Benedetto Bonfiglio, Leighton's favourite of favourites ("They are all myBonfigli!" he would exclaim), whose angels' aureoles rest on wreaths of roses, and whose lovely work Perugia seems to have monopolised. The old paintings of Martino, Gentile da Fabiano, Pietro da Foligno, and theirfollowers Leighton also loved, likewise the later work of Bernardino Pinturicchio and Lo Spagna, pupils with Raphael of Perugino. Among his greatest favourites were the painted banners—theGonfalone—which are peculiar to the Umbrian cities. He loved the freshness of their quality—the result of a first painting never retouched—the masterly ease of the workmanship, full of tender, gracious beauty. These days were Leighton's real holidays, where, in rapturous admiration of the art he loved so profoundly, he put behind him for the time the weight of official responsibility, and the no less exhausting social duties of his life.

Had Leighton been able to devote himself to the method of painting in fresco, and to work in a warm, dry climate, which admits of painting into the wet surface of plaster without danger of the wall retaining the moisture, he would, undoubtedly, have felt a freer impulse to work rapidly and more spontaneously than when his touch was controlled by the complicated procedures in oil painting. In the process of paintingal fresco, colour, in a sense, models itself—its absorption into the wet plaster softening the edges of one touch into another; hence, over a first painting no half obliteration is necessary, and any elaborate finish is avoided. Being obliged to complete before the plaster was dry, Leighton could not have yielded to the temptation to over-refine his surface; and his splendid power as a draughtsman, allied to his sense of beauty, would have found a perfectly spontaneous, happy utterance. As a boy he had imbibed one great principle, and from this principle he never deviated. He wrote, "The thoroughness of all the great masters is so pervading a quality that I look upon them all as forming one aristocracy." In his sketches alone did Leighton relax from the strain which absolute thoroughness involves; and then, in all the fervour of æsthetic inspiration, colour would fly on canvas, chalk or paper, with a charm of quality andexquisite grace of line and form which, as Mr. Briton Rivière remarks, is the very best that can be obtained from a great artist thoroughly trained, but which condition Leighton would never admit into what he considered his serious work. He writes to his father from Rome, January 1853: "I was deeply impressed with the glorious works of art I saw in Venice and Florence, and was particularly struck with the exquisitelyelaboratefinish of most of the leading works bywhatevermaster; the highest possible finish combined with the greatest possible breadth and grandeur of disposition in the principal masses. Art with the old masters was full of love, refined,—sterling." Leighton formed his standard from these old masters, and never for a moment allowed his standard to be replaced by another. In certain types of Englishmen chivalric loyalty develops at times into obstinacy. Leighton, with all his passion for Italy, his artistic sensitiveness, his excitability, his finely wrought nervous temperament, and his intense power of sympathy, had also in his blood something of the old English Tory, which made him adhere and remain loyal to the strongest impressions of his youth. Catholic and generous as he always proved himself to be when it was a question of considering the work of others, when he was considering his own he ever maintained absolute consistency with the tenets of his early illuminations. Speaking of his extraordinary sense of duty and the consequent tension involved, Mr. Briton Rivière writes:—

"No doubt the constant wear and tear occasioned by the perpetual strain of mental and physical watchfulness did much to shorten his life; I think it sometimes injured his own work as an artist, because, though a great artist can never be evolved except by years of patient work and strenuous effort to do his very best always, yet, on the other hand, it is often the happy, easy work and absolutely spontaneous effort of the moment by such a hand which is his very best. Such happy, easy workprobably Leighton would seldom allow himself to do, and never would leave at the right moment, but would still strive to make better and more complete. He must still elaborate it and try to make it more perfect; and this it was that made his enthusiastic admirer Watts sometimes say, 'How much finer Leighton's work would be if he would admit the accidental into it.'"

A fact, little suspected by the public, certainly affected the element of strength in some of Leighton's works. Besides often suffering from a positive want of health, his normal physical condition was far from robust; and, as appears in his letters, he suffered much through weakness and irritation in the eyes from the time he was a boy. He did not wear his physical (or any other) distress on his sleeve, and experienced many hindrances in his work never dreamt of, even by his intimate acquaintances. These might not have been so serious had he been willing to sacrifice all other duties in life to his own special vocation; but though he realised that Art, the language of beauty, was his main passion, his conscience would not allow him to make this passion an excuse for avoiding help to his generation on other lines, if he distinctly felt he could do so. In the happiest of surroundings, with his life unburdened by public responsibilities, he painted "Cimabue's Madonna"; and, for pure vigour in the manipulation, this painting has a robust quality which is scarcely to be found in any other of the larger works which followed, though these may possess many other virtues, and evince a more definite individuality, than does the early work.

Leighton's art appeals to the artists (comparatively few in England) possessed of cosmopolitan culture—also to many who love beauty, a sense of refined distinction in feeling and in form and in the arrangement of line. Beyond these it appeals also to the great public outside the radius of specialists, a public which is impressed by a sense of beautyand achievement without possessing the knowledge of experts. It is not much cared for by the disciples of either of the latest schools in England, and in France, which have governed fashion in the matter of taste for the last twenty years. In the first place, it appeals but little to those to whom the highest province of art appears to consist in conveying didactic sentiments and poetic ideas through a language of form and colour—to suggest thought to the brain rather than beauty to the eye. Respecting this theory of the province of art, Leighton expresses himself clearly in his second address to the Royal Academy students in December 1881:—

"Now the language of Art is not the appointed vehicle of ethic truths; of these, as of all knowledge as distinct from emotion, though not necessarily separated from it, the obvious and only fitted vehicle is speech, written or spoken—words, the symbols of ideas. The simplest spoken homily, if sincere in spirit and lofty in tone, will have more direct didactic efficacy than all the works of all the most pious painters and sculptors from Giotto to Michael Angelo; more than the Passion music of Bach, more than a Requiem by Cherubini, more than an Oratorio of Handel."It is not, then, it cannot be the foremost duty of Art to seek to embody that which it cannot adequately present, and to enter into a competition in which it is doomed to inevitable defeat."

"It is not, then, it cannot be the foremost duty of Art to seek to embody that which it cannot adequately present, and to enter into a competition in which it is doomed to inevitable defeat."

That so great a painter as Watts should have taken a contrary view, and preached this contrary view as that which inspired his ownconsciousaims, was quite sufficient to secure to it many adherents. He preached his doctrine, moreover, with a most convincing argument, but one which cannot logically be used in favour of it, namely, his own great genius as apainter. Watts was essentially apainter—one who at his best ranks with the best painters of all times.

Mr. Arthur Symons, writing on "The Psychology ofWatts,"[5]quotes a popular preacher who affirmed that "Critics who approach his (Watts') work from the side of technical excellence do not interest him at all. His endeavour has been to make his pictures as good as works of art as was possible to him, for fear that they should fail altogether in their appeal; but, beyond that, their excellence as mere pictures is nothing to him." "Now," writes Mr. Symons, "it is quite possible that Watts may have really said or written something of the kind; he may even, when he set himself down to think, have thought it. The conscious mental processes of an artist have often little enough relation with his work as art; by no means is every artist a critic as well as an artist. But to take a great painter at his word, if he assures you that the excellence of his pictures 'as mere pictures' is nothing to him; to suppose seriously that at the root of his painting was not the desire to paint; to believe for a moment that great pictorial work has ever been done except by those who were painters first, and everything else afterwards, is to confuse the elementary notions of things, hopelessly and finally. And so, when we are told that the technical excellence of Watts' pictures is of little consequence, we can but answer that to the 'painter of earnest truths,' as to all painters, nothing can be of more consequence; for it is only through this technical excellence that 'Hope,' or 'The Happy Warrior,' or 'Love and Life,' is to be preferred to the picture leaflet which the district missionary distributes on his way through the streets."

All who knew Watts intimately and watched him working day by day can testify that he spared no labour, time, or patience, in working over and over on a picture in order to attain the finest quality in the actual surface which his material—paint—could possibly produce.

Neither the disciples of the original brotherhood of thepre-Raphaelites nor those of Burne-Jones care, as a rule, for Leighton's art. Though starting as one with the pre-Raphaelites, Burne-Jones, possessing a remarkably fine intellect, a subtle fancy, a rich inventiveness in the detail of design, an exquisite sense of grace, and great genius as a colourist, developed so distinct an individuality that his followers cannot be precisely identified with those of the pre-Raphaelites. Leighton fully appreciated the genius of Burne-Jones, and did all in his power to secure his adherence to the Academy; but he had no sympathy for that feeling in art evinced by Burne-Jones' followers, which is so essentially rooted in purely personal moods that even distortion of the human frame is condoned, so long as prominence is given to the suggestion of such moods.

Imbued with a rare, peculiar refinement all its own, a kind of æsthetic creed sprang up in the later days of the nineteenth century apart from the arid soil of commonplace respectability and tasteless materialism. Burne-Jones painted it, Kate Vaughan danced it, Maeterlinck wrote it, the "Souls" (rather unsuccessfully) attempted to live it, the humourists caricatured it, the Philistines denounced it as morbid and unwholesome. Leighton was tolerant and amused, but could not be very solemn over it. And, assuredly, already this creed has been whisked away into the past by fashions diametrically opposed to it in character. Its text may be found in Melisande's reiterated refrain, "I am not happy"—though the unhappiness does not seem ever to have been of the nature of the iron which entered into the soul, but rather the shadow of sadness, adopted with the idea that such a condition betokens a more rare and tender grace than the radiance of joy can give. Every mood of the subjective has been lately in fashion in æsthetic circles, and is still rampant in much of the up-to-date (or down-to-date, as it may be) conditions of the presenttaste. This is probably consequent on the leadership of those artists who possessed not only genius and sense of beauty, but a peculiar charm of texture in their work which seems a native adjunct to certain temperaments. It is a purely personal manner, and crops up without reference apparently to any special school of art. In Sodoma we find it allied to a development of the splendid completeness of Italian Art; again in the Celt, Watts, to a lofty imagination and to a Pheidian sensibility for noble form; it appears in the work of the Jew, Simeon Solomon; and is an element in Burne-Jones' lovely quality of painting especially noticeable in his water-colour drawings—and, on a smaller scale of workmanship, in the pictures by Pinwell. It is more a matter of quality than of colour, and yet it is only colourists who have possessed it—most obviously, however, where the key of colour is restrained almost to monochrome. A hint of it can be found in Tintoretto's paintings, where few positive tints are prominent, as in some of the ceiling paintings in the Ducal Palace at Venice. There is a something which this special handling suggests which possesses a very subtle charm, the charm of dreamland,—less tangible, less real than direct appeals from nature. A slight mystery seems to veil the vision like a reflection swayed by the surface of the water. It is less explicit than any real object, and only suggests completion without quite achieving it; there is something left out from the aspect of nature, something added from the ego of the artist. There are those to whom such a treatment suggests a deeper truth than can any wholly explicit expression, because they feel forcibly that mystery is the soul of all earthly conditions—"we see through a glass darkly." There are others—and Leighton was among these—who are so strongly imbued with a sense of the wonderful and marvellous in actual creation that they need no art, no veiled suggestion of the hidden, inorder to realise that our lives are wrapped in mystery from the cradle to the grave. This quality in painting alluded to, fits in with that taste in literature which prefers hints to assertions—that insistency on the value of what is, after all, but afugitivephase in special temperaments—that setting most value on the principle of suggestion rather than of definition, of which we hear so much. The devotees of Maeterlinck delight in the shadow of a thought rather than the thoughtarrêté; they feel that a further stage of refined culture is reached in worshipping a style you have to get somehow behind, rather than one in which thoughts are fully and frankly expressed. Doubtless it requires a more subtile weapon to catch the fleeting aroma, the hint of a thought trembling in the brain and giving it permanent existence in Art, than to carve the expression of a complete idea explicitly with cameo-like precision, be it in the form of words or a visual impression—the wise sayings of a Solomon or a Bacon, the sculpture of a Pheidias or the painting of a Leonardo da Vinci. The actual visible facts in the aspects of nature, which were of such entrancing interest to Leighton, become of less and less interest to the wide public as the human intelligence is trained more and more through books, less and less through the eye; our modern conditions making the world we live in, more and more ugly and uninspiring to the echoing tune of nature within us. Even if we recede into the depths of the country, we find the signs all round us of the sense of beauty being deadened, the revulsion against ugliness having ceased—corrugated iron supplanting thatched roofing, and the loveliest, most rural spots in England year after year newly deprived of some special charm they have possessed for centuries. Those who seek for beauty have been led to find it in the unreal—the things which might be, but are not. We cannot help it, but we certainly become more artificial asour civilisation becomes more complicated, and everything we see around us grows uglier. It is because the general public has so little genuine interest in Art or love of beauty, however great may be its professions, that the tendency has developed to care for the art which appeals rather to the mind and the æsthetic sensibilities generally, than to the actual vision.

This reign of the subjective has brought in its train the undue monopolising of the world's most ardent interest in one passion. French novels of great literary power secured to it the monopoly in France, and magnates in æsthetic culture have grafted it on to our English taste. This strongest and most beautiful feeling in human nature has been so monotonously forced upon us in literatureà tort et à travers—the assumption that this is the only feeling worth serious consideration has been dwelt on with such a tiresome pertinacity—it has been so often caricatured, so often debased in books and pictures, that even the real thing itself runs a danger of palling. This human passion may be the greatest, but it is not the only great feeling with which the lives of men and women are enriched; and surely the absorbing prominence which has been given to it latterly in literature is out of proportion with its real position in healthy lives. Little sympathy seems left for other deep and stirring emotions. In Leighton's art we find no monopoly of this kind either recorded or suggested. He painted the passion of lovers in the "Paolo and Francesca," but with no more sincere interest than he did other feelings; than, for instance, his fervent and reverent worship of art in "Cimabue's Madonna," or in the ecstasy of joy in the child flying into the embrace of her mother in "The Return of Persephone," or in the exquisite tender feeling of Elisha breathing renewed life into the Shunammite's son, or in that sense of rest and peace after struggle in the lovely figure of "Ariadne" when Death releases her from her pain; or in the yearning for that peacein the "King David": "Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away and be at rest."

As the climax of nature's loveliest creations Leighton treated the human form with a courageous purity. In his undraped figures there is the same total absence of the mark of the degenerate as there is in everything he did and was; no remote hint of anydouble-entendreveiled by æsthetic refinement, any more than there is in the Bible, theIliad, or in the sculpture of Pheidias.

To quote lines that were written about Leighton very shortly before his death:—

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