Chapter III: Introduction

SIR WILLIAM RICHMOND, R.A., and Mr. Walter Crane have kindly contributed the following notes:--

It was in 1860 that I first knew Leighton. We met over affairs
connected with the Artist Rifle Corps at Burlington House, and
afterwards at the studios of various artists, where discussions
took place regarding the formation and means of conduct of the
Corps. On several occasions I walked home with Leighton to his
house in Orme Square.

I don't think I have ever known a man who grew more steadily
than Leighton did. The effort of his artistic life was to remove
the effects of a certain mannerism and over-education in his
early artistic life. His knowledge was wonderful, his powers of
design without immediate consultation with Nature were
phenomenal; he feared the facility in himself and went always to
Nature, that out of her manifold gifts he should be inspired
directly by them. And this constant study had its drawbacks as
well as its merits, because in one sense it stood in the way of
the development of an abstract power of invention. If ever an
artist made the most of his conscious abilities, Leighton did.
His character was so curiously simple on the one hand, and so
complicated on the other, that a balance between a very
emotional and extremely accurate temperament had to be found,
and it was found. How far a certain charm of spontaneity was
obscured a little, perhaps by erudition and a sort of
Aristotelian preciseness, it is not for me to say. There is in
all things a balance which, when once obtained, reduces the
weight in both scales. But we must take a life as it has been
made by circumstances, by early training and after influences;
and probably most men who are in earnest,--and Leighton was
pre-eminently in earnest,--find their proper issue finally. That
the best of Leighton's work will live, I am convinced; that it
will hold its own when a great deal of other work praised,
admired, even worshipped during the life of his contemporaries
shall be dead, I feel quite assured; and one may very justly be
asked--Why? The simple answer is that it was thorough, definite,
sincere, accomplished. Leighton never put out his hand towards
the limbo of vulgarity or fashion. Like Virgil, like
Mendelssohn, Leighton was a stylist, and his life's work showed
a perfection of attainment upon the lines which he drew out for
his progress almost to my thinking unrivalled in the work of any
of his contemporaries. Here and there he struck a deep note of
poetry, here and there he was like a Greek for his simplicity,
here and there his work shows the luxury of the Venetians, the
restraint of the Florentines, but never perhaps the majesty of
M. Angelo or the strong charm of Raphael. His art was eclectic;
still it was Leighton, and could have been done only as the
result of great natural gifts, assiduous study, force of
character, and, withal, independence of vision. His love of
beauty was his own personal love, not learnt, hardly perhaps
inherited, but spontaneous and lasting. This devotion to beauty
may have sometimes led his emotions away from character, which
sometimes is very nearly ugly as well as very nearly allied to
the highest beauty, which Bacon says has always something of
strangeness in it. The pursuit of beauty, _per se_, may be
purchased at the expense of character.

But Leighton was always pulling himself up; and when he found
himself too facile, too ornate, he resolutely set his mind to
correct any tendency in that direction by fidelity to Nature,
sometimes even to her ugly movements. Excess was not in his
nature, which was curiously logical; his mind was swift,
far-seeing; in debate he was admirable, always seeing the weak
point of an argument at once, and "partie pris" was his
abomination. A man so gifted in the essence and laws of form, so
learned in the construction of the human frame, so deeply
sensitive to line and movement as well as to structure, surely
would have given to the world great works of sculpture. Indeed
he did, but not enough! One regrets that--still one must accept
the fact that form is but little cared for in this country, and
Leighton sinned by reason of his love of form; by many he was
called not a painter because he did not smear, did not trust to
accidents, did not leave works half done--because he was sincere
to his conviction that a work of art must be, to last, complete
"ad unguem." The present craze for incompleteness, for sketches
instead of pictures, for unripe instead of ripe fruit, must die
as all false notions die; the best, the rightest will live; and
when the present ephemeral fashion has worked itself out, the
nobility of Leighton's works, his best, are certain to take
their place in the estimation of those that know as surely as
that they are good.

How many out of the multitude really, if we could test them,
care one jot for the Elgin Marbles, for the Demeter of Knidos,
for the vault of the Sistine Chapel?--very few. Really great
things never can be accepted by the commonplace. How should they
be? for to understand the highest in music, in architecture,
sculpture, or painting, the observer or listener must have a
spark in his constitution which is a portion of the flame that
burned white heat in the soul of the conceiver. How can such an
attitude of intimate sympathy belong to the many? It never has,
and probably never will. Great men are rare, and those who are
mentally or organically made to comprehend them are rare also.
The great can afford to wait because they are immortal. In all
one's dealings with Leighton what did one find? a noble nature,
restrained, charitable, in earnest; and if in many discussions
as to the desirability of certain events, certain compromises,
certain acts of conformity, one did not agree with Leighton, one
knew "au fond" that the attitude was quite logical, not hastily
arrived at, and the position taken up was to be strenuously
held: and it was that power of consistency which made Leighton
so trustworthy. He was fearless when his principles were
touched, he was loyal to his associates in the Academy even if
he did not see eye to eye with them, and he was loyal to his art
and to his friends. If Leighton had chosen politics for his
career he would probably have been Prime Minister, just as
Burne-Jones might have been Archbishop of Canterbury had he
continued his early and very remarkable theological studies. All
really great men have endless possibilities. It is more or less
chance which decides the direction of ability, which, once
discovered, forcibly, dominantly present, must find
opportunities for its highest development and achievement in the
tenure of the goal. It was ability and natural gifts that made
Leighton great, industry that nourished his greatness, and
stability to principle which made it lasting in his lifetime,
and must for all time stamp his work. The thing that really
engages one's interest about a great man is not so much his
"technique" as his general disposition and character, which
forms for itself a suitable "technique" by which his
achievements have been manifested. Should any one by-and-by
describe the "technique" of Joachim, the supreme violinist, he
would probably interest a few, but in reality he would say
nothing really valuable, excepting inasmuch as he touched upon
first principles. The "modus operandi" of an artist's life is
moulded by his personal aims, the means are those by which he
found his own way of stating them; and one doubts very much if,
after all, the points which differentiate one man's work from
another's are not those which have obliterated the conscious
efforts, preserving just the touches which genius gives beyond
and above all laws that may be learnt. Verse no doubt is much
dependent for its beauty on the system of the arrangement of
syllables, and the music they make when harmoniously handled
upon the final perfection which they reach, and so become
rule-making instead of being the result of rule-following. Hence
lies that unaccountable beauty which is the inexplicable result
of the ego--that taste, that selection, that special word which
creates an impression immediately, and which seems inimitable
even, and obviously the only one which could have been used;
that is style--the very essence of the ego which cannot be
copied, or indeed again brought into relation with the idea. And
isn't that the reason why the copy of a picture can never be
really like an original? even if the "technique" is identical,
it lacks that last touch, that last word which transcends
tradition, almost transcends thought, for it is just the thought
which has been summed up in a moment of inspiration,
uncalculated, spontaneous. Leighton was far too wise a man to
believe in the constant recurrence of inspirations: he knew that
the moment when the whole spirit is ready to act is involuntary;
he knew that to reach the supremacy of that moment, labour was
necessary; that in labour is the foundation of the building for
that moment of inspiration. One may question if the first vision
in Leighton was very strong--strong as Blake's, strong as many
artists whose powers of attainment were much less than
Leighton's, but whose vision was clearer at the outset. Rougher
minds than Leighton's have produced more epic effects, and a
ruder, less accomplished "technique" has borne with it more
original, more trenchant ideas. Leighton was not a mystic; he
dealt with thoughts which he embodied in forms that he saw, but
which he also made his own in their application; that was his
genius of originality. The rugged verse of AEschylus had no place
in his temperament, much as he admired it; the polished diction
of Virgil bore more similitude to Leighton's inspiration.
Sometimes one missed in his work just the touch of the rugged
which would have given more grace by comparison, by contrast.
His grace of diction, his oratory, his writing, was sometimes
over-refined, and missed its mark by over-elaboration. The very
speciality of Leighton was completeness. One has seen pictures
in his study only half finished, which had a charm of freshness
that vanished as each portion became worked into equal value.
But that fastidiousness was his characteristic, it was part of
him; and therefore we must not deplore it. His originality was
exemplified by his power of taking pains, his power of will to
do his very best according to his guiding spirit of
thoroughness. Temperaments are so different. Whistler could not
be Leighton. Because we admire the one, it is not necessary to
decry the other; that is weak criticism, or rather none at all.
The spirit which inspires the impressionist is not the spirit of
design, but a limited observation in a very restricted area. We
can have the Academic as well as the Impressionist: both are
useful as foils to each other, and it is just as narrow of the
Impressionists to want all men to see nature and art as they see
them, as it has been for the Academics to see "nothing" in the
newer if more limited system. I believe that Leighton's real
love was early Italian art; all that came to him after was the
result of growth. His enthusiasm for Mino da Fiesole, for the
earlier Raphaels, for Duccio of Siena, for Lorenzetti, was
evident and absorbing; other enthusiasms were more branches from
the stem than its roots. He loved line; he found it there: he
loved restraint of action, pure sensuous beauty; he found it in
early Italian Art. The reserve of emotions touched him in Greek
Art--its suavity, its almost geometrical precision, the
tunefulness and melody of its rhythmical concords. His love of
music was on the same lines: Wagner never appealed to him as
Mozart did; it was too strenuous, too busy in changes of key,
too incomplete in the finish and development of phrases. It was
not that he liked dulness--not a bit; he was emotional, often
gay, often depressed--excitable even; but to him Art was an
intellectual more than a purely emotional system, and he liked
it to be finished, consistent, perfect--and those qualities he
strove for, without a doubt he obtained in a high measure. It
will be long before we see again the like of Frederic Leighton,
a man complete in himself.

W.B. RICHMOND.
_June 1906._

* * * * *

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 Athenaeum 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 light_ is
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 Caesars. He was
with a lady who, I believe, was the author of the story
published in _The 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 are
_delightful_--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 the _only_ man, 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 rest
The princely painter have ye borne away,
Who still in death upholds his sumptuous sway;
Who strove in life with learned skill to wrest
Art's priceless secret hid in Beauty's breast
With 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 hours
Are numbered: honour due, when, as we deem,
To his ideal was the artist true.

WALTER CRANE.

* * * * *

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 a _painter_ asserted 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 and solidity 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.

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
that _form_ is before all things, make a very great mistake.
Form _is certainly all important_; one cannot study it enough;
_but_ the greater part of _form_ falls within the province of
the tabooed _brush_. The everlasting hobby of _contour_ (which
belongs to the drawing material) is first the _place_ where the
_form_ comes 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 must _reculer 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