Chapter II: Rome (5)

MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,--Although since my last letter I have had
no news of you, I cannot pass by this moment, so important to
me, without giving you intelligence of it. Yesterday I at last
sent off both my pictures, the large one to London, the small
one to Paris, with the consignment of the Roman Committee.
Thank goodness, at last I have got them off my mind! And how
sorry I am, dear Friend, that I could not put the finishing
touches to them in your presence! Of the "Cimabue," I send
you, in two pieces, a very bad photograph, but it is the best
that could be made within four walls; from it you will only be
able to judge generally of the grouping, for as regards the
colour, which comes out so black in the photograph, in the
picture it is altogether clear and light. You will certainly
be glad to hear that this work has earned much praise here; I
promised that you should not have to be ashamed of your pupil.
The small picture is so dark in effect, that it would be
impossible to photograph it; but as I suppose you, like all
the rest of the world, will visit the great exhibition in
Paris, you can avail yourself of the same opportunity to see
my daub.

Gamba is, now as ever, industrious, tireless, conscientious;
his picture _also_ will be finished in a few weeks, and will
be a great credit to him; I only wish he had a prospect of
selling it, but at present the sale of pictures is stagnant,
especially in Piedmont, where the art-loving Queen-Mother has
died. He will have to fight hard against the gigantic pedantry
of the Turin Academy and College of Painters (_Malfacultaet_),
for he paints things exactly as he sees them in nature; God be
with him! Of course, he sends you heartfelt greetings. Of
other artistic doings in Rome I cannot tell you much; I think
I have already told you that I look upon Rome as the grave of
art; for a young artist, I mean, for whom actively suggestive
surroundings are necessary. As regards the so-called German
historical art, that is not much of a joke to me; when men,
out of pure impotence, throw themselves under the shield of
noble tendencies, in order to make mistaken efforts to imitate
the work of other painters, they are simply ridiculous; but
when men are endowed with fine natural gifts, and nevertheless
out of sheer queerness and pedantry go altogether astray, then
I only feel angry. God forgive me if I am intolerant, but
according to my view an artist must produce his art out of his
own heart; or he is none.

Dear Master, I may perhaps pass through Frankfurt on my way
back (in June); I should like beyond all things to see you
again, you and your works that are so dear to me. Have you
painted the "Death of Christ" which pleased me so much? Write
to me if you have time, and tell me how things go with you.
Keep a friendly recollection of your grateful, affectionate
pupil,

FRED. LEIGHTON.

_Translation._]
FRANKFURT AM MAIN,
_March 20, 1855_.

DEAR FRIEND,--My best thanks for your dear lines of the 1st
and for the photographs, with which you afforded me the
greatest pleasure. I had an idea that I should receive this
friendly remembrance, and I hope that you have meanwhile
received my letter of the 3rd March. I know the difference in
a photograph of a painting, and the often quite contrary
effect of the yellow and red, too well to be deceived by a
dark impression; the masses, their distribution, alike in the
groups and in the light and shade, the outline of the
background, most of the single figures, all please me very
well, and you could not believe how much I rejoice in every
detail in which I recognise my Leighton, and when I see how
all these have been achieved so thoroughly by industrious
study and artistic culture. You have indeed prepared a real
feast for me, my good wishes in my last letter were quite the
right ones, and the recognition which you have obtained in
Rome was certainly well earned. I am convinced that Overbeck
was heartily pleased with your pictures. It was perhaps my
imagination, dear friend, when I thought from your letter that
there was a slight cloud between us, but I think it will be
torn away when these lines reach you. The fond idea of being
again able to share your life and artistic work, I must
relinquish, for I am an exile, and besides cannot make myself
familiar with your progress as an artist in the Fatherland.
Shall, then, your stay in Italy be ended by the journey which
you led me to hope would bring you to see me again? But I
forget so easily that we live in a world of renunciations, and
that often when we believe we are disposing, we are disposed.
My spirit and my love will always, wherever you may be, be
with you. It occurred to me that probably our excellent Gamba
would not send his great picture to Paris, and yet I seem to
have heard that he intended doing so; it appears to me that
exhibition in Paris would give the picture more importance
than in Turin; that Gamba would triumph over the academic
formalities in Turin, I do not doubt in the least. His
grandmother and all his friends await him here; on a journey
to Paris?--Now, dear friend, one more request. Ihlee brought
from Rome some photographic views, with which I and the
friends who know Rome are truly delighted; the worthy Frau
Rath Schlosser wishes very much to possess a selection of
twelve, I myself would like to have at least three, will you
be so good as to bring them with you in June, and also
yourself take the trouble to make a really beautiful
selection? You will oblige me thereby very greatly. I shall
rejoice excessively to see you again, and wish much that your
stay in Frankfurt need not be so short. Remember me cordially
to Gamba, and give my kindest regards to Altmeister Cornelius.
My wife thanks you for your kind remembrance, and sends many
greetings. All friends here have bidden me send their best
wishes to you and Gamba. Adieu, dear friend, always and
altogether yours,

EDW. STEINLE.

_Translation._]
ROME, _April 15, 1855_.

MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,--Only a day or two after I sent off my
letter with the photograph, I received your dear lines, and
now I have also the letter in which you acknowledge receipt of
mine, so that I am well off for news of you. All the affection
and kind sympathy which you express for me has affected me
deeply, and I look forward with sincere pleasure to the moment
when I shall be able personally to express my gratitude to
you; I am also most eager to see the drawings of the
completion of which you tell me; judging by the sketches, I
expect great things from this composition, so rich in
imagination; I saw the first beginnings of it. That you are
pleased with my photograph rejoices me extremely, but I am
sorry that you have not mingled some blame with the praise;
you say that _most_ of my figures please you well; ergo, some
of them do not; which are they? why not tell me all? do you no
longer regard me as your pupil? From one part of your letter I
understand that you think I have had a great deal of
intercourse with good old Overbeck; that is not so; he and his
followers one does not see at all unless one belongs to their
clique; Overbeck has never been within my four walls.
Cornelius I see less seldom, but not very often; he is a very
charming old man, so cheerful and friendly, and is of great
strength; for the rest, he has some little queernesses; he
said to me once, "Yes, Nature has also her style" (!). Does
that not bespeak a curious mental development?

Gamba will not, as it happens, send his picture to Paris, it
was not ready in time; meantime, it is being exhibited here in
the Piazza del Popolo, and receives the applause it merits; he
sends you most cordial greeting.

Yes, indeed, the years of my "Italian Journey" are now ended!
It seems but yesterday that we first took leave of one
another, and you encouraged me upon my setting forth; the
remembrance makes me sad at heart; I cannot help asking myself
whether my expectations for these three years have been
fulfilled: and the question remains unanswered.

My stay in Italy will always remain a charming memory to me; a
beautiful, irrecoverable time; the young, careless,
independent time! I have also made some friends here who will
always be dear to me, and to whom I particularly attribute my
attachment to Rome.

From an artistic point of view I am quite glad to leave Rome,
which I, _for a beginner_, regard as the grave of art. A young
man needs before all things the emulation of his
contemporaries; this I lack here in the highest degree; also
here I cannot learn my _trade_, and, notwithstanding
Cornelius, I am of opinion that the spirit cannot work
effectively until the hand has attained complete pliancy, and
I cannot see what right a painter has to evade the
difficulties of painting; Cornelius always says, "Take care
that the hand does not become master of the spirit," and that
sounds well enough; however, I see that, in consequence of his
scheme of development, he has not once succeeded in painting a
head reasonably, not once in modelling as the _form_ requires;
and that, with all his magnificent talent! Judge the tree by
the fruit. How are the frescoes of Raphael painted and
modelled? and the Sixtine Chapel! the lower part of the "Day
of Judgment" is in a high degree _colouristic_
(_Koloristisch_). _Those_ people took nature straight from
God, and were not ashamed; therefore their art was no
galvanised mummy.

I must close. Please remember me most kindly to your wife, and
to my other friends. For yourself, keep in remembrance, your
grateful and affectionate pupil,

FRED. LEIGHTON.

Steinle answers:--

_Translation._]
FRANKFURT AM MAIN, _May 6, 1855_.

MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,--Hearty thanks for your friendly note of
April. The photograph of your picture quite pleases me as it
is, and if I am particularly pleased with the details, that is
to cast no discredit on the whole; for a general criticism the
photograph does not give me sufficient certainty, and I must
content myself, this time, with expressing the pleasure your
always well-composed pictures give me. You know your picture,
and can see more in the photograph than I. What you say about
Overbeck, Cornelius, and Rome, I understand well, and I am in
sympathy with much of it; but I am almost beginning to fear
you, especially as I particularly feel how much I myself am
wanting in ground-work, how much I myself belong to the same
evolution as these two men. Custom, circumstances, and the
tendencies of the times, are often mitigating facts in our
judgment of these painters; they have fought against things of
which we no longer know anything, and, as participators in
their art, we stand, to a certain extent, shoulder to shoulder
with them; their delicacies are proofs of their struggle, and
the characteristic of youth becomes in old age principally a
sign of weakness. Also experience has taught me not to let
myself be deceived by what is called "cliquiness," I grant you
that this is not an infallible judgment, which is often to be
regretted, but people nowadays are weak, and I have found that
cliques often have a greater tendency for good than those
judgments which make more noise, a greater outcry than the
fact warrants. Overbeck has always withdrawn himself too much;
but now, dear friend, you must attack him on the subject
before you leave Rome. Kindest regards to Gamba, to whom I
wish a happy completion of his picture. My wife sends best
greetings. Always and altogether yours,

EDW. STEINLE.

We have read in Leighton's letters the effect the "Cimabue's Madonna" produced on his friends in Rome, and how it was nailed up as "in a coffin" and despatched from the Eternal City, where it was destined never to return.

There exists a small long envelope edged with black, stained horny yellow by time, the head of Queen Victoria on the postage stamp. It was despatched from England to Rome over fifty years ago. In the ardent spirit of the young artist who had been eagerly awaiting tidings of his first great venture, what a tumult of excitement must the contents of that small envelope have aroused! They brought with them a conclusive and triumphal end to all arguments with his father concerning the career Leighton had chosen; they realised the sanguine hopes of his beloved master, Steinle, and of his other friends; last not least, they gave him the means and the great happiness of helping his fellow-artists. To quote again from the record of one who was with him in Rome at the time: "My husband[35] remembers the departure of his picture 'The Triumph of Cimabue,' sent with diffidence, and so, proportionate was the joy when news came of its success, and that the Queen had bought it. It was the month of May. Rome was at its loveliest, and Leighton's friends and brother-artists gave him a festal dinner to celebrate his honours. On receiving the news, Leighton's first act was to fly to three less successful artists and buy a picture from each of them. (George Mason, then still unknown, was one.) And so Leighton reflected his own happiness at once on others."

_Translation._]
ROME, 123 VIA FELICE,
_May 18, 1855_.

DEAR AND HONOURED FRIEND,--As with everything that I receive
from you, I was delighted to get your dear lines of the 6th;
one thing only in them grieved me a little, _i.e._ that what I
said about the German historical painters here seems to have
rather jarred upon you. Was I then so intolerant in my
expressions? I hope not. You say that you are almost afraid of
me. When I spoke to you so freely of the others, was that not
a plain proof of how completely I except you? You assuredly
know, dear Master, how and what I think of you, and that I
ascribe entirely to you my whole aesthetic culture in art. Your
commission to good old Overbeck I have executed as well as I
could. I found him much more cheerful and less ailing than
before. He received me with the greatest amiability; we spoke,
amongst other things, of you, and I perceived that he had it
in his mind to go soon to Germany and to spend a couple of
weeks in Mainz; I should like to be the first to give you this
good news.

As for myself, dear Friend, my plans are once more quite
upset. My father has hastily recalled me to England, and I am
sorry to say that I must consequently give up going to
Frankfurt. However, I have not neglected your commission. I
have chosen the photographs, and you will receive them in the
beginning of next month, and that by a friend of mine who will
be passing through Frankfurt, and whom I hereby introduce to
you. Mrs. Sartoris is my dearest friend, and the noblest,
cleverest woman I have ever met; I need not say more to secure
her a cordial welcome from you. She is one of the celebrated
theatrical family of Kemble. It is now ten or eleven years
since she left the stage, but she is still the greatest living
cantatrice.[36]

You will certainly be glad to hear that on the first day of
the Exhibition my picture was bought by the Queen.

I am at this moment in the thick of packing; you must excuse,
dear Friend, my ending so abruptly. I will write again from
England.--Your grateful pupil,

FRED LEIGHTON.

So ended the first page of Leighton's life as an artist in the Rome of the fifties--a very different Rome to that of the present. The atmosphere was still steeped in those days with a flavour belonging to the Papal temporal dominion, and the visible life still picturesque with the costumes and grandeur of mediaeval customs.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] See page 83.

[21] Page 97.

[22] Page 26, "Introduction."

[23] "If the Almighty were to come before me, with absolute knowledge in his right hand, and perpetual striving after truth in his left, I would fling myself to his left, praying: Father, give! pure truth is thine alone."

[24] "The Well-Head" (see List of Illustrations), drawn during Leighton's visit to Venice, and described in "Pebbles," more than justifies this opinion, for it may be questioned whether any other drawing he ever made of the kind is as perfectly beautiful.

[25] Miss Laing, afterwards Lady Nias.

[26] See Appendix. Presidential Address delivered by Sir F. Leighton, Bart., P.R.A., at the Art Congress, held at Liverpool, December 3, 1888.

[27] This modest attitude Leighton took as listener reminds me of the last time he saw Browning. One afternoon in the autumn of 1888, we were sitting with Leighton and Browning in the Kensington studio. Browning showed us photographs of the Palazzo Rezzonico which he had lately given to his son. The subject turned to a discussion on Byron and Shelley. Often as I had heard Browning talk well, I never heard him converse so well as he did on that afternoon. It was no monologue. It was real conversation, and of the kind that inspires others to do also their best; but Leighton never uttered, till--when, after an hour or so, we rose to leave--he exclaimed, "Oh, don't! _do_ go on," and we had to sit down again. When at last the good thing came to an end, Leighton conducted us downstairs to his door, where we parted. Browning waved a farewell from across the road, where he stood for a moment in front of the little cottages, while Leighton stood in the porch-way of his house. The next day Browning started on his last journey to Italy--to die in the Palazzo Rezzonico.

[28] Another old friend of Leighton's, Mr. Hamilton Aide, writes: "My journal 1854-55-56 contains frequent notices of our excursions and long days spent on the Campagna, and on the hill-sides near the Bagni di Lucca, where we took out food for mind and will as well as for the body, and sketched while one of our party read aloud--and also of many Tableaux at Rome, devised by him (Leighton) to suit the colouring, character, and grace of certain noble ladies."

[29] It appears that Leighton had been misinformed as to "every girl" having to pass such an examination.

[30] In Italien auf meiner Wanderschaft
Hab' ich dies Bueblein aufgerafft
Hab's mit dem Pinsel so hingeschrieben
Ist mir leider unvollendet geblieben.

[31] The Cafe Greco still exists, unaltered since the days when Leighton and Gamba lunched there every day on _macaroni al burro_. I visited it last May (1906), and heard from the present proprietor that it continues to be frequented by artists of all countries. He had heard of the book of sketches, and also that Rafaello had sold it before his death, but to whom the _Padrone_ could not say.

[32] Of Cervara there is a pencil drawing by Leighton in the Leighton House Collection, in his earliest style, dated 1856.

[33] Fanny Kemble's answer to these words of Leighton's were:--"Thank you, my dear Sir Frederic, for the address you have been so good as to give me. You honour me by remembering any conversation you ever had with me. I remember one I had with you many years ago, but do not think you refer to that. You say no word, and you do well, upon the subject that must be uppermost in both our minds when we meet or hold any intercourse with each other--our thoughts must be of the same complexion and could hardly find any expression. Thank you again for your kindness.--I am affectionately, your obliged,

FANNY KEMBLE."

[34] Ruskin wrote the following criticism of the picture when it was first exhibited: "This is a very important and very beautiful picture. It has both sincerity and grace, and is painted on the purest principles of Venetian art--that is to say, on the calm acceptance of the whole of nature, small and great, as, in its place, deserving of faithful rendering. The great secret of the Venetians was their simplicity. They were great colourists, not because they had peculiar secrets about oil and colour, but because when they saw a thing red they painted it red, and ... when they saw it distinctly they painted it distinctly. In all Paul Veronese's pictures the lace borders of the tablecloths or fringes of the dresses are painted with just as much care as the faces of the principal figures; and the reader may rest assured that in all great Art it is so. Everything in it is done as well as it can be done. Thus, in the picture before us, in the background is the Church of San Miniato, strictly accurate in every detail; on top of the wall are oleanders and pinks, as carefully painted as the church; the architecture of the shrine on the wall is studied from thirteenth-century Gothic, and painted with as much care as the pinks; the dresses of the figures, very beautifully designed, are painted with as much care as the faces; that is to say, all things throughout with as much care as the painter could bestow. It necessarily follows that what is most difficult (_i.e._ the faces) should be comparatively the worst done. But if they are done as well as the painter could do them, it is all we have to ask, and modern artists are under a wonderful mistake in thinking that when they have painted faces ill, they make their pictures more valuable by painting the dresses worse.

"The painting before us has been objected to because it seems broken up in bits. Precisely the same objection would hold, and in very nearly the same degree, against the best works of the Venetians. All faithful colourists' work, in figure-painting, has a look of sharp separation between part and part.... Although, however, in common with all other work of its class, it is marked by these sharp divisions, there is no confusion in its arrangement. The principal figure is nobly principal, not by extraordinary light, but by its own pure whiteness; and both the master and the young Giotto attract full regard by distinction of form and face. The features of the boy are carefully studied, and are indeed what, from the existing portraits of him, we know those of Giotto must have been in his youth. The head of the young girl who wears the garland of blue flowers is also very sweetly conceived."

D.G. Rossetti wrote to his friend, William Allingham, May 11, 1855: "There is a big picture of Cimabue, one of his works in procession, by a new man, living abroad, named Leighton--a huge thing, which the Queen has bought; which every one talks of. The R.A.'s have been gasping for years for some one to back against Hunt and Millais, and here they have him, a fact that makes some people do the picture injustice in return. It was very interesting to me at first sight; but on looking more at it, I think there is great richness of arrangement, a quality which, when really existing, as it does in the best old masters, and perhaps hitherto in no living man--at any rate English--ranks among the great qualities."

[35] Sir John Leslie.

[36] Mrs. Richmond Ritchie gives a very charming account of her first introduction in the Rome of those days to Leighton's friend, the great _cantatrice_, Mrs. Sartoris, in the preface to the edition of "A Week in a French Country House," published in 1902. Thackeray, Mrs. Ritchie's father, and Charles Kemble, Mrs. Sartoris' father, had been old friends. Mrs. Ritchie says: "The writer's first definite picture of her old friend (Mrs. Sartoris) remains as a sort of frontispiece to many aspects and remembrances. We were all standing in a big Roman drawing-room with a great window to the west, and the colours of the room were not unlike sunset colours. There was a long piano with a bowl of flowers on it in the centre of the room; there were soft carpets to tread upon; a beautiful little boy in a white dress, with yellow locks all a-shine from the light of the window, was perched upon a low chair looking up at his mother, who with her arm round him stood by the chair, so that their two heads were on a level. She was dressed (I can see her still) in a sort of grey satin robe, and her beautiful proud head was turned towards the child. She seemed pleased to see my father, who had brought us to be introduced to her, and she made us welcome, then, and all that winter, to her home. In that distant, vivid hour (there may be others as vivid now for a new generation) Rome was still a mediaeval city--monks in every shade of black and grey and brown were in the streets outside with their sandalled feet flapping on the pavement; cardinals passed in their great pantomime coaches, rolling on with accompaniment of shabby cocked-hats and liveries to clear a way; Americans were rare and much made of; English were paramount; at night oil-lamps swung in the darkness. Many of the ruins of the present were still in their graves peacefully hidden away for another generation to unearth; the new buildings, the streets, the gas lamps, the tramways were not. The Sartorises had fireplaces with huge logs burning; Mrs. Browning sat by her smouldering wood fire; but we in our lodging still had to light brazen pans of charcoal to warm ourselves if we shivered. At my request an old friend, who for our good fortune has kept a diary, opens one of his pretty vellum-bound note-books, and evokes an hour of those old Italian times from the summer following that Roman winter. He tells of a peaceful Sunday at Lucca, a place of which I have often heard Mrs. Sartoris speak with pleasure; Leighton and Hatty Hosmer and Hamilton Aide himself are there; they are all sitting peacefully together on some high terrace with a distant view of the spreading plains, while Mrs. Sartoris reads to them out of one of her favourite Dr. Channing's sermons. Another page tells of a party at Ostia. 'Very pleasant we made ourselves in a pine wood,' says the diarist; 'I walked by A.S.'s _chaise-a-porteur_ up the hills later in the evening. She talked of her past life and all its trials, and of her early youth.' Mrs. Ritchie in her preface also tells of this 'past life.'

"The Rue de Clichy of which he (Thackeray) speaks was the street in which Miss Foster lived, under whose care both Fanny and Adelaide Kemble were placed, when they successively went to Paris. Then each in turn came out and made her mark, and each in turn married and left the stage for that world in which real tragedies and real comedies are still happening, and where men and women play their own parts instinctively and sing their own songs. Adelaide's short artistic career lasted from 1835 to 1842, long enough to impress all the subsequent years of her life. With all the welcoming success which was hers, there must have been many a moment of disillusion, discouragement, and suffering for a girl so original, so aristocratic in instinct, so quick of perception, so individual, '_De la boheme exquise_,' as some great lady once described her. The following page out of one of her early diaries gives a vivid picture of one side of her artistic life: '...Received an intimation that the company who are to act with me had arrived at Trieste, and would be here at eleven to rehearse the music. At twelve came Signor Carcano (the director of the music), and a dirty-looking little object, who turned out to be the prompter. After they had sat some time wondering what detained the rest, a little fusty woman, with a grey-coloured white petticoat dangling three inches below her gown, holding a thin shivering dog by a dirty pocket-handkerchief, and followed by a tall slip of a man, with his hair all down his back, and decorated with whiskers, beard, and mustachios, made her appearance. I advanced to welcome my Adalgisa, but without making any attempt at a return of my salutation, she glanced all round the room and merely said, "Come fa caldo qui! Non c'e nessuno ancora? Andiamo a prendere un caffe," and taking the arm of the hairy man retreated forthwith. Then came Signor Gallo, leader of the band, then the tenor, who could have gained the prize for unwashedness against 'em all--and after half-an-hour more waiting, Adalgisa and the hairy one returned, and after about half-an-hour more arrived my bass, and, God bless him, he came clean!

"'We then went to work. Adalgisa could think of nothing but her dog, who kept up a continuous plaintive howl all the time we sang, which she assured me was because it liked the band accompaniment better than the piano, as it never made signs of disapprobation when she took it to rehearsals with the orchestra. She also informed me that it had five puppies, all of which it had nursed itself, as if Italian dogs were in the habit of hiring out wet nurses....'" And again--

"I can remember her describing to us one of these performances, and her enjoyment of the long folds of drapery as she flew across the stage as Norma and how she added with a sudden flash, half humour, half enthusiasm: 'I have everything a woman could wish for, my friends and my home, my husband and my children, and yet sometimes a wild longing comes over me to be back, if only for one hour, on the stage again, and living once more as I did in those early adventurous times.' She was standing in a beautiful room in Park Place when she said this. There were high carved cabinets, and worked silken tapestries on the walls, and a great golden carved glass over her head--she herself in some velvet brocaded dress stood looking not unlike a picture by Tintoret."