Chapter IV: Royal Academician--Music--Arab Hall (1)

1869-1878

In 1869, the year after his journeyings in Egypt, Leighton was elected a Royal Academician. The picture which he chose as his Diploma work to be deposited in the Academy on his election was the "S. Jerome," one of those few works which reflected the side of his nature about which he was profoundly reserved. Another work of which the same might be said is "Elijah in the Wilderness," painted in 1879. Leighton told a friend he had put more of himself into that picture than into any other he had ever invented. Three paintings which are among Leighton's very best appeared on the walls of the Academy in 1869--"Daedalus and Icarus," "Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon," and "Helios and Rhodos." In no work did Leighton indulge his passion for colour so successfully as in the last-named picture. He wrote to his master, Steinle, in 1860: "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." Again, in a letter to a friend in 1879 he wrote: "Colour was supposed to be my _forte_ (_par parenthese_, though I am not a colourist, albeit passionately fond of colour, I have always been, and am, a great _cuisinier_; I have tried quite innumerable methods and vehicles)." Some of Leighton's appreciators cannot help feeling jealous of this obstinate determination to struggle with those gifts for which nature had not given him the preference, many considering his artistic error to have been that of putting the screw too tightly on his preconceived determinations. Had he _sometimes_, at all events, allowed his "fanatic preference" to have free play, more of his works might have glowed with the revelry in rich colour we find on the canvas of "Helios and Rhodos."

No complete work evinces more conclusively the force of Leighton's dramatic gift than "Electra"; and--further--masterly and beautiful as are all Leighton's arrangements of drapery, those in this design strike me as specially expressive. They are truly superb. The balance of the masses, and the sweeping lines from the feet up to the shoulder and over the chest, are grandly conceived--the arrangement of the folds notably adding to the suggestion of tragic feeling in the attitude of the figure.

"Icarus," in the picture of the inventive father and the aspiring son, is a beautiful figure of a youth. The conception, design, and colouring of the picture are worthy of Leighton at his best.

Though Egypt had made a deep impression on Leighton's aesthetic emotions, as is obvious from his Diary, his visit there apparently did not actually suggest any pictures except "A Nile Woman"--the only work exhibited at the Academy in 1870--and "Egyptian Slinger Scaring Birds in Harvest-time: Moonrise," exhibited in 1875. A subject suggested by an event, which had occurred some years previously, appears to have been engrossing his mind, before he found expression for it, in the painting "Heracles Wrestling with Death for the Body of Alcestis," exhibited 1871. Many persons admired this work more than any that had previously appeared.[42] It evoked the lines from Browning:--

"I know, too, a great Kaunian painter, strong
As Hercules, though rosy with a robe
Of Grace that softens down the sinewy strength:
And he has made a picture of it all.
There lies Alcestis dead, beneath the sun
She longed to look her last upon, beside
The sea, which somehow tempts the life in us
To come trip over its white waste of waves,
And try escape from earth, and fleet as free.
Behind the body I suppose there bends
Old Pheres in his hoary impotence;
And women-wailers, in a corner crouch
--Four, beautiful as you four,--yes, indeed!
Close, each to other, agonising all,
As fastened, in fear's rhythmic sympathy,
To two contending opposite. There strains
The might o' the hero 'gainst his more than match,
--Death, dreadful not in thew and bone, but like
The envenomed substance that exudes some dew,
Whereby the merely honest flesh and blood
Will fester up and run to ruin straight,
Ere they can close with, clasp and overcome,
The poisonous impalpability
That simulates a form beneath the flow
Of those grey garments; I pronounce that piece
Worthy to set up in our Poikile!"

Leighton had taken the lines from Euripides as his text:--

"There slept a silent palace in the sun,
With plains adjacent and Thessalian peace."

"....Yea, I will go and lie in wait for Death, the king of souls
departed, with the dusky robes, and methinks I shall find him
hard by the grave drinking the sacrificial wine. And if I can
seize him by this ambush, springing from my lair, and throw my
arms in circle round him, none shall snatch his panting body
from my grasp till he give back the woman to me."

This work made a landmark in Leighton's career. "Dante at Verona" had combined a complicated design of many figures with a dramatic feeling; "Cimabue's Madonna" and the "Syracusan Bride" had proved Leighton's "great power of rich arrangement," to quote D.G. Rossetti's words respecting "Cimabue's Madonna"; but in the "Heracles Wrestling with Death" there was felt to be a more profound tragedy; indeed, the objective treatment had in this instance ceded to one more subjective, in so far that the subject had appealed to him through a personal experience, though the feeling was, as in nearly all Leighton's greatest works, veiled in a classic garb. In a letter to his mother, dated November 13, 1864, he wrote:--

_November 13, 1864._

I returned so suddenly on account of a grave and terrible
anxiety, _now quite removed_, about my dear friend Mrs.
Sartoris.

I must tell you that for some time past she has been looking
dreadfully ill, getting daily worse, haggard and thin. I, in
common with all her friends, had been growing very anxious, and
conjectured that some day or other a crisis must come in which
only the surgeon could avail her. I little thought how near at
hand the moment was! She on her part had borne up with an amount
of moral and physical courage which everybody says was quite
incredible. Her nearest relations have not known from her that
she was in so dangerous a state. A week ago I arrived at
Francport, the chateau of the Marquis de l'Aigle, where I
expected to find Mr. and Mrs. Sartoris and their children. I
found instead Mme. de l'Aigle in the deepest anxiety and
commotion, having received a letter saying that on that very day
poor Mrs. S. was undergoing an operation of which the event was
very doubtful! I need hardly say that I instantly hurried off to
England in the greatest alarm, and in fear and trembling lest
she should have succumbed. You may judge of my relief, next
morning, on hearing from the servant in Park Place that she was
doing well. I hurried off to the doctor, a friend of mine, and
heard that for six hours her life had been in jeopardy, but
that, thank God, she was doing amazingly well, that for a week
there could be no _certainty_ of her recovery, but that the
possible chances doubled every day. Since then, thank God, she
has progressed so _astoundingly_ owing to her immense roots of
vitality and health, that one may be almost _certain_
(_unberufen_) of her complete recovery, in which event she will
enjoy life more than she has done for several years. Her family
and friends have escaped an entirely irreparable loss.

The very beautiful picture, "Greek Girls Picking up Pebbles by the Shore of the Sea," was also exhibited in the Academy in 1871, likewise a smaller work, "Cleoboulos Instructing his Daughter Cleobouline." This is one of several which proves Leighton's gift for catching the grace and singular refinement of childhood. "Lord Leighton's drawings and paintings of children show the protecting, caressing tenderness he felt towards them. He loved little things, little children, kittens--'caressing littleness, that littleness in which there is much of the whole woeful heart of things'--everything lovely that had in it the unconscious grace of helplessness seemed especially to touch him."

In 1872 "Summer Moon" was exhibited--the picture Watts told me he thought he preferred to all of Leighton's paintings. I believe the cause of this preference arose from the fact that the quality and texture in "Summer Moon" is looser and more vibrating, and gives a greater sense of atmosphere than is suggested by Leighton's works as a rule. Moonlight mystifies the tints of purple and blue, and creeps over and into every fold of the beautiful drapery--glistening on the white garment of the recumbent figure. In every line and touch in the exquisite design of the figures and drapery lurks the poetry of moonlight; the song of a nightingale perched on the branch of a pomegranate tree enhancing the sense of deep restfulness in the scene.[43]

It is thought by some that the design would have carried out the feeling of absolute repose better had the lower curves of the round aperture behind the figures been absent--these lines rather suggesting horns springing up on either side of the group. The end of the foot of the sitting figure being cut off by the bottom line of the picture has also a somewhat uncomfortable effect. The same thing occurs in the picture "Greek Girl Dancing," producing the feeling that the canvas has run short. These criticisms, however, only refer to minor matters. "Summer Moon" is an exquisitely beautiful picture, one which will ever sustain the great reputation of its creator. "A Condottiere" and the monochrome version of "The Industrial Arts of War" (76 x 177 in.), exhibited at the South Kensington International Exhibition the same year, strikingly contrast in character with "Summer Moon." If the one is notable for gentle, womanly grace and a sense of relaxation induced by slumber, "A Condottiere" is full of verve and virile power,[44] and in the design for "The Industrial Arts of War" all is action and movement. Leighton made many studies for all his principal pictures, but the finest group of sketches are certainly those made for mural decorations. Being executed under more difficult conditions than the easel pictures, doubtless he felt more preparation for frescoes was required. The studies in Leighton House for the "Arts of War," "Arts of Peace," two friezes, "Music," "The Dance," "And the Sea gave up the Dead that were in it," the painted decoration for the ceiling of a music room, "Phoenicians Bartering with Britons," are the most completely worked out and powerful studies in the collection. In the following year, 1873, the companion lunette in monochrome, "The Industrial Arts of Peace," was exhibited at the Royal Academy. This design is more comfortably fitted into its space than that of the "Arts of War," as the whole is lifted up from the bottom line of the lunette, and no part of the figures is cut off (as in the case of the men's feet and the drapery of the otherwise most beautiful group of women on the left hand in the "Arts of War"). "Weaving the Wreath," a small picture of lovely colour and subtle technique, appeared in 1873, and in 1874 three of the most remarkable of Leighton's pictures of single figures. "In a Moorish Garden: a Dream of Granada" the charming child "Cleobouline" reappears in an Eastern turban and drapery, holding a copper vessel and followed by two peacocks, walking across a square canvas filled in by a background of the delightful garden at Generalife at Granada. "The Antique Juggling Girl" is one of the best examples in Leighton's work of his "ardent passion for colour," and his perfect mastery in painting the beauty of an undraped figure. The form of the torso recalls the exquisite fragment from the Naples Museum.[45] The actual painting, however, exemplifies the truth of Leighton's very notable words written to Steinle, "What 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." The principal scheme of colour is effectively carried throughout the picture--in the golden flesh tint against the ivory-white of the parchment banner hung as a screen background, the crown of dark ivy leaves and the golden balls telling out as notes of a deeper tone; the crinkled folds of white drapery resting on the darker mass, the full tawny browns and yellows of the leopard skins on which the figure stands making a dark, luminous basis, the metal jar and the dense foliage of deep verdant green enriched by the orange of the fruit springing up and continuing the dark framework of the central design. This picture is a very original work, and should, I think, be placed very high in the rank of Leighton's achievements. "Clytemnestra from the battlements of Argos watches for the beacon fires which are to announce the return of Agamemnon" is, in every sense, a contrast to the "Antique Juggling Girl." The figure is powerful and heavily draped, the drapery being superb, and the limbs those which might truly overpower even Agamemnon.[46]

The bar of red, which strikes a warm note among the cool lights and shadows of moonlight, adding immensely to the value of these tones, was suggested by the coral necklace, worn by the model from whom Leighton painted the study by moonlight for "Summer Moon" in Rome. "Egyptian Slinger" was Leighton's principal work exhibited in 1875, "The Daphnephoria" already engrossing most of his time and thought. This picture (89 x 204 inches), "a triumphal procession held every ninth year at Thebes in honour of Apollo and to commemorate a victory of the Thebans over the Aeolians of Arne" (see Proclus, "Chrestomath," p. 11), and the very fine portrait of Sir Richard Burton were exhibited in 1876. From some points of view "The Daphnephoria" is Leighton's greatest achievement. The difficulties he surmounted successfully in the work were of a character with which few English artists could cope at all. The size of the canvas alone would certainly have insisted on ten years' devotion to it from most modern artist-workmen. The extreme breadth of the arrangement of the masses, united with great beauty of line and form in the detail; the sense of the moving of a procession swinging along to the rhythmic phrases of chanted music; the brilliant light of Greece, striking on the fine surface of the marble platform along which the procession is moving and on the town below, which it has left behind, contrasting with the deep shadowed cypress grove rising as background to the figures;--all this is more than masterly: it is convincing. It is probably quite unlike what took place at Thebes every ninth year;--but Art is not Archaeology. The written account of what took place fired Leighton's imagination to create a scene in which he treated the Greek function as the text; the wonderful light and the fineness of Greek atmosphere as the tone; the processional majesty and grace of movement as the action. The element of beauty which the record suggested to him was the truth of the scene to Leighton, and he has recorded the essence of it in an extraordinarily original work.

It was after Leighton's death that the picture first "struck home" to me. The last day of the exhibition of a wonderful man's life-work had come to an end one Saturday afternoon in the spring of 1897. It had been a record day at Burlington House; crowds had filled the galleries from morning till the light had begun to wane. Only a very few stragglers remained, but the keeper, Mr. Calderon, R.A., was there. One of the porters in his red gown came up to him, and petitioned for a half-hour more before the final closing of the doors on the message which Leighton had left to the world. Both men, the keeper and the porter, looked grave and sad. The great President had been beloved by all. The porter's request was granted, and it was during that short half-hour that I seemed for the first time fully to realise the great qualities of "The Daphnephoria"; the room being empty, it could be seen from the right distance, and the conception of the work and its completion spoke out very plainly and convincingly.

Different as a picture could be was the exquisite "Music Lesson" of 1877. Again we have the lovely little Cleobouline, her delicate fingers learning to make music on a mandoline. The grouping and grace in the attitude of the teacher and the pupil, the ease and pleasant arrangement of the draperies, the texture and fine distinction in the feeling and technique of the work, can only be suggested by a reproduction; whereas to appreciate in any way the delicate brightness and charm of the colour is impossible without seeing the original. This is the one of all Leighton's paintings which--perhaps more than any other--conclusively contradicts the statement made, that "the inspiration stage was practically passed when he took the crayon in his hand." Another Cleobouline also appeared in the same Academy Exhibition--as fascinating as the little lady learning music; "Study" it was called--a child in a delightfully painted glistening pink silk dressing-gown, sitting cross-kneed on an Eastern carpet before an inlaid prayer-desk. Very characteristic of Leighton's bewitching painting of children's feet are the little toes of the child peeping out between the folds of pink drapery. The finest woman's portrait Leighton ever painted appeared the same year as a "Music Lesson." This was Miss Mabel Mills.[47] The breadth and delicacy in the modelling of the cheek and throat rivals the work of Greek sculpture. The most serious work exhibited in 1877 was the bronze version of Leighton's "Athlete Strangling a Python,"[48] the small sketch of which was made in 1874. This statue showed to the world his power as a sculptor. Every work he modelled evinced in an equal degree his consummate ability as such, though the more flexible treatment--in the modelled sketches for the "Python," the sleeping group in "Cymon and Iphigenia,"[49] and the "Perseus and Andromeda"--may carry with it a greater charm than is found in the completed statues. The following letters from the French sculptor Dalou, the painter George Boughton, and Sir Edgar Boehm are testimonies to the effect which the "Python" in bronze, and the sketch, produced on artists at the time they were executed:--

217A GLEBE PLACE, CHELSEA, S.W.,
_2 Mai 1877_.

MON CHER LEIGHTON,--Si mes humbles felicitations peuvent vous
toucher j'en serais tres heureux.

J'esperais vous voir lundi dernier a l'Academy et vous
complimenter comme vous le meritez pour votre belle statue. A
quoi sert de gratter toute sa vie un morceau de terre, quand
pres de soi on voit tout a coup surgir un chef d'oeuvre d'une
main a qui la sculpture etait jusque la restee etrangere?

Si j'etais envieux ce serait une belle occasion pour moi, mais
loin de la j'ai ete tres heureux d'admirer votre oeuvre, et tres
flatte de l'honneur qu'on a fait a ma pauvre terre cuite, en la
placant en pendant avec votre bronze; c'est encore un bon
souvenir de plus qui me viens de l'Academy et de vous, mon
cher Leighton, car je sais toute la part que vous avez prise au
deplacement dont ma figure a ete l'objet.

Aussi croyez que je suis heureux de pouvoir me dire votre
sincere admirateur et tres reconnaissant ami,

J. DALOU.

GROVE LODGE,
PALACE GARDENS TERRACE, KENSINGTON, W.,
_December 11, 1874_.

DEAR MR. LEIGHTON,--I fear that the note which I sent with the
bronze did not explain itself sufficiently. I _meant_ to ask you
to _accept_ it--"to have and to hold for yourself your heirs and
assigns for ever," to speak legally.

I can in no way express the pleasure I felt when I saw your
small study for the man battling with the serpent. I hope the
report in the _Academy_ that it is to be done life-size in
bronze is true. It will be worthy to go with the best of the
antiques. The other study for the singing maidens was
delightful[50] as the other was grand. To put it in the
picturesque parlance of the Far West, "I was knocked over and
sat on." It will be a slight relief to give my words a little
form and weight; as I am unfortunately not a Roman Emperor and
have not a golden crown of laurel about me, pray do me the
favour to accept the only thing I have worth sending.--Believe
me, yours very sincerely,

GEO. H. BOUGHTON.

GROVE LODGE,
PALACE GARDENS TERRACE, KENSINGTON,
_December 14, 1874_.

DEAR MR. LEIGHTON,--I don't know which to admire most--the
"sketch," as _you_ call it (it seems "heroic" in size even now),
or your great kindness in sending it to me. Now that I may enjoy
it at my leisure--and I take my leisure very often--it seems
finer even than I thought it was. Not merely the _spirit_ of the
antique, but the antique _itself_, and the "antique" I mean is
the everlasting, the best mortal may ever hope to make.

This is, as far as my capacity for judging is worth, _sincere_.
I know how perilous it is to say warmly what one feels, how it
is put down as "gush" and "bad form"; but when in this very
London fog of Art one sees a spark of pure light, there is some
excuse for shouting with joy.

I should reproach myself with taking up overmuch of your time in
this matter, but I know that you are very good-natured; besides
you might have taken my poor little bronze tribute in as few
words as I sent it, and there it might have ended--though for
myself I am glad you did not, and shall be ever selfishly
thankful that you acted as kindly as you did.

Pray don't bother to reply to this, I am too much your debtor
already.--Yours very sincerely,

GEO. H. BOUGHTON.

78 CORNWALL GARDENS,
QUEEN'S GATE, _May 11, 1877_.

DEAR LEIGHTON,--I follow my instinct and sincere desire in
congratulating you on your magnificent statue in the Academy,
which I have just seen. It is superb. I think it the best statue
of modern days. I was riveted with admiration and astonishment;
and whatever you may think of my judgment, pray take this as my
humble and heartfelt tribute to a work of genius, which to my
mind ranks nearer "zur Antiken" than anything I have seen,
during my career, produced in any school or country.

Believe me, with sincere admiration, yours,

J.E. BOEHM.

In 1890 Leighton made a replica of the statue in marble for the Glyptothek in Copenhagen. It was exhibited in the Royal Academy Exhibition in 1891.

Many were the voices heard exclaiming that Leighton ought to give himself entirely to sculpture. His masterly power in understanding form, and giving expression to it in Art, was readily understood and appreciated when he worked in the round, whereas it had been but scantily appreciated in his painting; the fact being, that the public is unaccustomed to find that power developed in modern pictures, whereas in sculpture it is the principal and obvious aim in any statue. However, whatever the public thought or expressed, Leighton went on painting. In 1878 "Nausicaa" and "Winding the Skein" were exhibited, both among Leighton's happiest works. A reticent grace in the attitude of the figure, and a tender yearning sadness in the face, makes this rendering of "Nausicaa" very attractive. "Winding the Skein" is the best example of those fair pictures which Leighton painted, and evidently delighted in painting, as records of Southern--and more particularly--Greek light and atmosphere. For the special charm in the tone and colouring to be understood, the picture itself must be seen; but the design and delightful feeling in the movement of the figures can be rendered in the reproduction. Again in this work the fascinating little figure of Cleobouline appears and also the teacher in the "Music Lesson." In all, Leighton painted thirty-six important pictures, twenty-six slighter works,[51] and executed his first statue, "Athlete Strangling a Python," in the ten years between 1869 and 1879.

During these years the Royal Academy Exhibition took place in Burlington House, it having previously been held in a suite of rooms at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square.

Leighton sent photographs of the cartoons for the "Industrial Arts of War" and of "Peace"[52] to Steinle, who wrote his criticisms on the designs. The following is Leighton's answer:--

_Translation._]
_February 3, 1874._

MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,--Your very welcome lines arrived
auspiciously a few days ago. I need not say how delighted I am
that you are not displeased with the two compositions of your
old pupil, and that you recognise in them a not unworthy effort.
I am especially grateful to you that while giving your
approbation you have enclosed a criticism, and only regret that
you have blamed but one thing, where there are unfortunately so
many faults. I shall endeavour, if these cartoons ever come to
be carried out, as far as possible to repress the faults which
you remark in "Peace"; for, as I am by all means passionate for
the true _Hellenic_ art, and am touched beyond everything by its
noble simplicity and its unaffected directness, so the _Roman_
or Napoleonic at its highest is antipathetic to me--I had almost
said disgusting. The two compositions are intended for a large
court (where there are objects from all parts of the world and
of all epochs); they will not, however, stand _near_, but
opposite to one another. The figures will be life-size, the
foremost ones almost colossal. The "Arts of Peace" I transported
to Greece, partly out of sympathy, and partly on account of the
special beauty of the Greek ceramic and jewel work; the conduct
of arms seemed to me to find its highest expression in mediaeval
Italy, and I gladly seized this opportunity to tread the old
path again in which my feet now so seldom wander.

If you really believe that my old friends in Frankfurt will be
interested in these works, I shall be extremely pleased if you
will put them in the Gallery; I wish only one thing, namely,
that it may be made quite clear to the spectator that they are
merely _cartoons_; their entire lack of effect would otherwise
be surprising.

But the Pinta, of which you write, haunts my mind! If I had only
time to run over myself!--but it is impossible.

Once more heartiest greetings, from your devoted pupil,

FRED LEIGHTON.

The Prince Consort, I believe, first conceived the idea of decorating spaces on the walls of the Victoria and Albert Museum with frescoes, as a memorial of the nation's gratitude on the close of the Crimean War, and mentioned the subject to Leighton. It was not, however, till 1868 that Sir Henry Cole approached him officially on the subject in the following letter:--

_July 14, 1868._

SIR,--The Lords of the Committee of Council on Education having
had under their consideration the subject of the permanent
decoration of the lunettes at the ends of the South Court of the
South Kensington Museum, have directed me to inquire if it would
be agreeable to you to undertake to execute a picture for one of
these lunettes, for which lunette their Lordships would be
prepared to authorise a payment of L1000, it being understood
that all rights of copying the work belong to the Department.

When the court is completed, there will be four lunettes of a
similar size. At the present time, however, there are only two
spaces actually ready; and should you be willing to accept the
commission now offered to you, your picture would be placed in
one of these two finished lunettes. Mr. Watts, R.A., has been
asked to execute a similar commission for the second lunette;
and, in order that the works may have a certain symmetry in
respect of the scale of the figures, &c., it would be desirable
that you should place yourself into communication with him.--I
am, Sir, your obedient servant,

HENRY COLE.

Watts was not prepared to accept the commission to execute one of the frescoes, being already immersed in work which absorbed his whole time and attention. He did, however, accept the commission to make a cartoon for the figure of Titian to be worked in mosaic in one of the spaces which form a kind of frieze along the side of the Southern Court. Leighton, besides agreeing finally to paint frescoes on the lunettes at each end of the court, made cartoons in 1868 for two of these side spaces, one of the figure of Cimabue, the other of Niccolo Pisano. Sketches for these are in the Leighton House Collection. (See List of Illustrations.)

A controversy took place between Leighton and Sir Henry Cole respecting the question whether these figures were to be treated pictorially or decoratively, whether the background was to be of plain gold mosaic or whether there were to be objects depicted in perspective behind the figures. The following part of a letter from Leighton concluded the agreement.

I submit that I have given reasons _why_ the figures under
discussion should not be pictures, and that you, on the other
hand, have not put forward a single reason why, a single
principle on which they _should_ be pictures. You have contented
yourself with adducing some precedents; as the question,
however, is entirely one of principles, precedent alone means
nothing, one way or another; if it were not so, I should have
opposed to you cases in which the, to my mind, sounder principle
is observed.

Raphael's ceiling in the Vatican, for instance--an example you
will scarcely cavil at. There is not in the whole range of art a
single aberration that cannot be endorsed with some good name.
To glance once more at the principle: whether the gold behind
the figures be in effect the background of flat, or whether it
be, as you hold, "essentially something round"; whether or not
it be this, as I certainly assert, the wall throughout the
decoration, it is unanswerably a conventional _abstraction_, it
represents no concrete object, and as an _abstraction_ is
incompatible with any perspective representations of solid
objects, which presuppose space and distance--everything that is
on the _same_ plane as the figure is submitted to the same
conditions, hence any accessory on the pedestal is admissible;
everything _beyond_ the pedestal is part of the background,
which may be abstract or concrete, as you please, but _cannot_
logically be _both_.

I am the first to admit and admire the intimate connection which
existed formerly between architecture and painting: to say
"architecture and pictures," is to beg the whole question. In
condemning the loose practice of modern times, you cannot
propose upholding for admiration the mere fact that in old times
picture and wall were sometimes one, but no doubt allude with
just admiration to the harmony existing between them, in the
best examples, and to the wise adaptation of the one to the
other. You, I submit, are attacking and attempting to subvert
the very principles on which this harmony rests; my sole desire
is to assert and defend them, and I earnestly desire that,
actuated, as I am entirely convinced you are, more by the desire
to forward the truth than to triumph in argument, the views I
have put before you may eventually commend themselves to you,
and deter you from further encouraging a practice which may be
supported by precedent, but cannot be made tenable in theory.

In the autumn of 1873 Leighton visited Damascus, where he made studies for the picture exhibited in the 1874 Academy, "Old Damascus--Jews' Quarter,"[53] and a fine sketch of the interior of the Grand Mosque which he enlarged into a picture 62 x 49 inches, and exhibited in 1875. He also made a remarkable moonlight study preserved in the Leighton House Collection.

"One afternoon, late in the autumn of 1872," wrote Dr. William
Wright, "I was on the roof of my house trying to cool after a
long ride in the sun, when there came a loud knock at my door;
the latch was lifted, and presently a resplendent kavass mounted
to my platform. He explained to me that a noble Englishman was
coming up to see me, and with that Frederic Leighton skipped
gaily up the steps. After a courteous greeting and apology, he
sat down and became silent, absolutely wrapped up in the
pageantry of the sky. When I excused myself for the lapse of the
time, he looked at me, and said quietly, 'No artist ever wasted
time in accurately observing natural phenomena,' and added,
'That sunset will mix with my paint, and will tint your ink as
long as either of us lives. It will never be over, it has dyed
our spirits in colours which can never be washed out.'"

To his father he wrote:--

DAMASCUS, _October 18, 1873_.

DEAR PAPA,--I find that I am not as completely cut off from the
western world here as I have been led to believe I was, and that
boats leave Damascus for Alexandria weekly, and not fortnightly,
as I told you in my hasty line of the other day; although,
therefore, you are no longer uneasy about my health, I will not
defer till the later boat thanking you for your welcome letter
which reached me two or three days ago. I am much shocked and
concerned to hear of the death of my poor friend Benson, for
which I was in no way prepared, the last accounts I had received
before leaving England being of a decidedly hopeful nature. A
kinder heart never beat than his, and I felt really attached to
him; he is a great loss to me. And now to tell you about myself.
Three tedious days on board a Russian boat which tossed and
rolled like a cork over a sea on which a P. and O. would have
been motionless, brought me to Beyrout, a cheery, picturesque,
sunny port at the foot of Lebanon; gay and glad I was to land,
and Andrea's cool, clean inn overlooking the sea was a
delightful haven of rest, and my first meal at a steady table
(or a real chair) was ambrosial. Being in a hurry to get to the
end of my journey, I did not stay more than half a day, but
started by diligence for Damascus, a journey of some thirteen
hours, first over Lebanon itself (which is fine, but by no means
grand as I had hoped), then across the Valley of Coelesyria, and
lastly over Antilebanon, at the foot of which the town lies. At
the last relay I found waiting for me a horse and dragoman, for
which and whom I had telegraphed in order that I might get the
famous view of Damascus about which travellers have told wonders
from time immemorial, and which is only to be seen from a bridle
path over the hill above the suburb of Sala'aijeh; unfortunately
the days are getting short, and I did not reach the proper spot
till just after sunset; not too late, however, to enjoy the
marvellous prospect before me, and to feel that it is worthy of
all that has been said in its praise. It is impossible to
conceive anything more startling than the suddenness with which,
emerging from a narrow and absolutely barren cleft in the rock,
you see spread before your eyes and at your feet a dense mass of
exuberant trees spreading for miles on to the plain which looks
towards Palmyra, and, rising white in the midst of it, the
Damascus of the thousand and one nights. It is a great and a
rare thing for an old traveller not to be disappointed, and I am
grateful that it has been so with me this time. About the town
_itself_--as seen, I mean, _from within_--I have a mixed
feeling. In some respects it equals all my hopes, or at least in
one respect; in others it falls short of them. I have remarked
that to be prepared for disappointment never in the slightest
degree deadens the blow, and, accordingly, although I have both
read and been told to my heart's content that I should find the
streets unpicturesque and without character, relatively of
course (relatively say, to Cairo, not to Baker Street), I was,
nevertheless, depressed and in a way surprised to find them so.
Of course, there are, as in every Eastern town, numberless
delightful bits, and those ennobled as regularly as the day
comes by a right royal sun and canopy of blue, yet in the main,
Cairo and, in a very different way, Algiers, are far more
brilliant, and by-the-bye although you see here an extraordinary
variety of costumes from the remotest corners of the East (I
have met Indians in the streets), a group of Algerine Bedouins
in their stately white robes is worth a whole bazaar full of the
peasants and pilgrims that throng Damascus. Then in
architecture, Damascus falls far behind Cairo, both for
abundance and beauty of its specimens. Its background, too,
Antilebanon, is unsatisfactory, humpy and without power of
character or beauty of line, such as makes the Red Mountains on
the skirt of the Cairene desert so delightful. Here then are the
shortcomings; but I have my compensation in the houses, the old
houses of which some few are standing, though grey and
perishing, and which are still lovely to enchantment. I can't
hope to convey to you in writing any idea of this loveliness,
and it is not within the scope of sketching (though I am doing
one or two little corners), but I am having three or four
photographs made (for there are none!) from which you will be
able to gather something of their charm. They cannot, however,
give you the splendour of the light, and the fanciful delicacy
of the colour in the open courts, or the intense and fantastic
gorgeousness of the interior. Indeed I shall probably not
attempt the latter, and though you will see lemon and myrtle
trees rising tall and slim out of the marble floors and bending
over tanks of running water, you will miss the vivid sparkling
of the leaves, and you will not hear the unceasing song of the
bubbling fountains. I wish I could report that I am doing much
work. I am doing some, and think I see my way to one or two
pot-boilers (the fatal, inevitable pot-boilers!); but distances
here are great, and so is the heat, and there is not much that
is within the compass of _sketching_, though there is endless
paintable material. I am doing a bit in the great mosque, which
is very delightful to me, in colour, and, if I can render it,
may strike others in the same way. I am having the spot
photographed in case I try to make a picture of it. The second
p.-b. would probably be some unambitious corner of a court with
a figure or two, _et voila_. It is late and I am sleepy, so
good-night and good-bye. I wish you gave me a brighter account
of Lina; give her too my best love. It was hardly worth while,
by-the-bye, to have my letters forwarded. I shall only get them,
if at all, just before leaving Damascus next week! I fear I
can't get back to England till end of third week in
November.--Your affectionate son,

FRED.

In the autumn of 1877 Leighton revisited Spain. A letter dated September 21, 1877, Madrid, in which Leighton answers certain questions asked by Mrs. Mark Pattison concerning art galleries and dealers, ends with the following sentence:--

Thank you for what you tell me about Puvis de Chavannes' work. I
admire the designs for Ste. Genevieve hugely, and am altogether
an _aficionado_ of that odd, incomplete, but refined and poetic
painter; but for emptiness of modelling he seeks his peer in
vain. I am seeing Velasquez again for the third time; this is
the place in which to see him in all his splendour, and in all
his nakedness--but that would be a chapter, and not a hasty
note.--Very truly yours,

FRED LEIGHTON.

From Spain Leighton crossed to Tangiers, whence he wrote:--

TANGIERS, _October 4, 1877_.

MY DEAR PAPA,--You are probably not a little surprised at the
superscription of this letter; so am I. It was a sudden and a
happy thought that brought me here. I reflected that, whilst I
had long wished to see Tangiers, I should not very probably come
to Spain again, and should therefore not have another chance of
visiting Morocco without a journey made on purpose. The run from
Gibraltar is only four hours, and I wonder the trip did not form
part of my original scheme. It will have one drawback for me,
that I shall get to Granada a few days later, and be by so much
the longer in getting news from England; but my journey will not
be prolonged on the whole, as I shall endeavour to cut off at
the end what I put on now. I the more owe myself what enjoyment
I can get here, that as I told you--did I not?--in my last, my
journey has been hitherto rather a dismal failure. I told you
how vile the weather was in Madrid, so that all technical study
of the pictures was out of the question. Well this is, since
then, the first perfectly fine afternoon we have had. Observe, I
only say afternoon, for it poured in the morning, and the
phenomenon of a wholly bright day has still to come. I am also
still further in arrears of enjoyment from the fact that I got
rather out of order, God knows why, the day I went to Toledo, to
the utter spoiling of what should have been one of my most
delightful trips, and am only now pulling round again, having
called in AEsculapius (at 2 dollars a consultation), whilst at
Gibraltar. An attack of this nature is simply fatal to any real
pleasure on one's journey, and, coming on the top of dark
weather and the contretemps just as the closing of the Alcazar
in Seville (one of the things I especially wanted to see) made
rather an absurd failure of the whole thing. At Seville I was
fool enough to go again to a bull-fight, and was so disgusted
that I got up and went away when the performance was only half
over. Meanwhile the aspect of the arena itself, with the
Cathedral and its marvellous tower rising just above into the
sky, is a very striking sight, and one I should regret to have
missed. The processional entry, too, of the whole of the
performers--picadors, capeodors, espadas, &c. &c.--is very
picturesque and stately. It is when the goring and torturing
begins that the sight is revolting; and the enormous popularity
of this form of sport with a nation, not, that I am aware of,
exceptionally cruel, only shows how easily our worst instincts
stifle our better nature, such as it is.

This is a prodigiously picturesque place, and I enjoy more than
I can say watching the Arabs swarming up the streets and
markets, stately and grand in their picturesqueness beyond any
population that I know, and particularly instructive and
valuable to an artist from the sculpturesque _definiteness_ of
their forms. The Jewish women here are said (by Ford) to be
prodigiously handsome. I have seen no Rebeccas amongst them yet.
I have not yet opened my box, and shall at best do little or
nothing; I have no time. Next week I shall be in Granada, from
where I hope to have to acknowledge a letter dated in Kensington
Park Gardens. Meanwhile I am, with best love to Lina and
yourself,--Yours affectionately,

FRED.

GRANADA, _October 19, 1877_.

MY DEAR PAPA,--To-morrow is my last day in Granada. On Sunday I
turn my face Londonward, and my holiday will be pretty nearly at
an end, as I have, from want of time, given up my original
intention of seeing Valencia, Alicante, Tarragona, &c. &c.
Travelling in Spain is so infinitely slower than I had
remembered it, and so ideally inconvenient in regard to hours of
starting and arriving, that my programme has altogether
undergone considerable modifications. I reached this place a
good week later than I expected, and I did not get your letter
till some days later yet, owing, I suppose, to the difficulty
experienced by the postal authorities in the art of reading.
This will account to you for the time that will have elapsed
between your receipt of my two epistles. I am truly sorry to
hear that poor Lina is below par; tell her so, with my love. As
you do not speak of yourself, I presume that you are in good
form, and am glad to hear it. There is one passage in your
letter which suggests to me a strong protest. I think it
preposterous that the ambulant spinsters, or otherwise, with
whom you foregather on your journeys, should expect _you_ to
furnish them with photos of your "celebrated son." I like
enthusiasm; but _genuine_ enthusiasm does not halt at a
shilling, which is the sum for which my effigy is obtainable in
the public market; _verb. sap._ I will not describe to you
Toledo, Cordova, Seville, Granada, &c. (under which heads see
Murray's guide-book). I have done so before (probably), and they
have altered less than I, with the exception, perhaps, of
Granada, or rather the Alhambra, which, alas! is changed indeed,
thanks to the restoring mania, and is now all but brand new. I
ought, perhaps, to remark that the changes in _me_ are not
precisely in that direction. Taking a bird's-eye view of my
holiday, I don't think I should call it altogether a success,
though I have had many very delightful moments, and have seen
many very beautiful things; but, in the first place, I have
failed to fulfil one of the special objects of my trip, that,
namely, of making a few sketches of sky effects, particularly
seaside skies, which I sorely want for my picture of the girls
and the skein of worsted. I have not done so, because I have not
_once_ seen anything even resembling the skies I mean, and which
are generally forthcoming at this season. The weather has indeed
of late been fine, often if not always, and here even, at
times, superb; but it is the before the rains, and not, as it
should be, the clear, keen, autumn weather, after the air has
been well swept and purged by the equinoctial broom and pail,
which I had a right to demand of a Mediterranean October. This
is a great disappointment. I did not want to _work_, and God
knows I have not (five little sketches in all!); but just this
document I did peremptorily require. In the second place, I have
been rather seedy (am all right now), not very, but enough to
poison my pleasure; and just so much that, after two or three
little amateur attempts (local apothecary, fellow-travellers,
&c. &c.), I thought it right (at Gibraltar) to see a doctor, not
_because_ I was ill, but _lest_ I should get worse and develop
more serious symptoms, as internal disturbance occasionally does
in hot countries. In a few days (and two large bottles of
physic) I was much better, and am now, I repeat, quite "myself"
again.

But I perceive that this uninteresting twaddle has filled my
paper, and barely left me space to tell that I have been to
Africa, and shall be home on the 28th (evening). Yes, to Africa;
Tangiers in four hours' steam from Gibraltar, and a most
picturesque spot, of which more when we meet. On my way home I
shall spend part of a day in Madrid, in the hopes of seeing the
pictures this time. On my road through France I shall make a
short break at Poitiers. _A bientot._--Affectionate son,

FRED.

During the nine years that Leighton was a Royal Academician he worked most energetically in many directions towards establishing the principles which he considered sound and essential to the growth of the best Art instincts in England. He was one of the Professional Examiners in Art from 1866 to 1875 at the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 1884 he became one of the Art Referees for the Museum, and was consulted by Sir Henry Cole to a considerable extent. He aided, as far as lay in his power, all Art Societies to expand and to grow on the lines of Catholicity. He was a member of the Committee of the Society of Dilettanti, for the purpose of obtaining information as to the probable success of renewed search for monuments of Greek Art. The following extract from a report proves what an active part he took in the business of the society:--

"In the autumn of the same year two hundred cases of
inscriptions and sculptures from Priene were transported from
Priene to Smyrna, and thence conveyed to England in H.M.S.
_Antelope_. In March 1870 the society presented these marbles to
the trustees of the British Museum. In May 1870 the committee,
then consisting of Earl Somers, Lord Houghton, Mr. Watkiss
Lloyd, Mr. Penrose, Mr. Cartwright, Mr. Leighton, and Mr.
Newton, held several meetings. The committee at their meetings
went carefully over all the drawings and details obtained by the
society of the Temple of Bacchus at Teos, Apollo Smintheus, and
Minerva Polias at Priene; they were of opinion that they would
form an interesting and valuable publication, and should be
proceeded with as soon as possible, and executed in a style
worthy of the former productions of the society. Mr. Leighton
offered to redraw the sculpture on some of the friezes, and Lord
Somers to prepare the landscape illustrations."

In 1871 the President of the Artist Benevolent Fund, Mr. J.K. Kempton Hope, wrote to Leighton: "I am peculiarly proud that the first act which I have to perform in my new character is to say how honoured and grateful we all should be if you would kindly consent to accept the position of Vice-President."

The following letter to his father announces that Leighton had been elected President of the International Jury of Painting, Paris Exhibition, 1878:--

HOTEL WESTMINSTER, 1878,
_Friday_.

DEAR PAPA,--I have been waiting to write till I should have
something to say beyond the fact that the weather is odious, and
shows no signs of relenting. On Saturday afternoon we had our
meeting of the Royal Commissioners, which had for its object the
hearing of an address from the Prince of Wales. On Monday
morning the _whole_ International Jury (some six hundred or
seven hundred members) met at the Ministere de Commerce, and was
little more than formal. _To-day_ the group of sections which
are concerned with Art held its first meeting under the
presidency of Signor Tullio Massarani, an Italian, with
Meissonier as Vice-President, the chief object of the meeting
being to inform the various sections of the groups whom the
Minister had appointed as their respective presidents. My
section, composed of forty members, is _Paintings and Drawings_;
there are twenty Frenchmen--nearly all the first artists of the
country, in fact--and you will be surprised and very much
gratified to learn that I was named president of this section--a
very high honour, of course, and one of which I am extremely
sensible, but which we must not misinterpret; it is, of course,
only by an act of international courtesy that the French placed
a foreigner at the head of their section, and amongst the other
foreign artists there were few names of much weight or standing;
still, it is a courtesy which will, I am sure, give you
pleasure. Our section being thus constituted, we then appointed
our own _vice_-president, reporter, and secretary; they were
unanimously elected; the first was my old friend, Robert Fleury;
the second was Emile de Savelege, the Belgian writer whom you
know of; and the third an old and kind friend of mine, Maurice
Cottier, a man much mixed up in the official artistic world and
possessing a magnificent picture gallery. To-morrow we begin our
labours at the Exhibition, and in the afternoon I shall go to
the _seance_ of the _Institut_, which always takes place on
Saturdays. This is my budget.