»nnn.-!n^‘tr.nnfln'niK>r-;«nnrnrvn(n:}n)n3;inin:io{KimiaBaowiiiwtnmKH»an9HmiKRlffpm HTON THE J. PAUI. GETTY MUSEUM LIBRARY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/fredericlordleigOOrhys 1 FREDERIC LORD LEIGHTON A T f ‘V \ 4 CIMABUE'S MADONNA CARRIED IN PROCESSION THROUGH THE STREETS OF FLORENCE FREDERIC LORD LEIGHTON LATE PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS • AN ILLUSTRATED RECORD OF HIS LIFE AND WORK BY ERNEST RHYS LONDON GEORGE BELL O' SONS CHISWICK PRESS : — CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON, I i7HE J. FwijL GinTi' .\7 Iw LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PHOTOGRAVURE PLATES PAGE I. Cimabue’s Madonna. Reproduced by the gracious per- mission of Her Majesty the Queen Frontispiece II. Golden Hours. Reproduced by the kind permission of Lord Davey . . . . . . . . 17 III. St. Jerome. Reproduced by the kind permission of the President and Council of the Royal Academy of Arts 22 IV. Hercules wrestling with Death for the Body of Alcestis. Reproduced by the kind permission of Sir Bernhard Samuelson ..... 24 V. Summer Moon. Reproduced by the kind permission of the late Alfred Morrison, Esq., from the photogravure published by Messrs. P. and D. Colnaghi . . 26 VI. Winding the Skein. Reproduced from the photo- gravure by permission of the Fine Art Society . . 30 VII. Phryne at Eleusis. Reproduced by permission of the late Lord Leighton . . . . . . 32 VIII. Farewell. Reproduced from the photogravure by per- Hiission of Messrs. A. Tooth and Sons . . . 38 IX. Cymon and Iphigenia. Reproduced from the photo- gravure by permission of the Fine Art Society. . 50 X. The Daphnephoria. Reproduced from the photo- gravure by permission of the Fine Art Society . . 74 XI. An Eastern Slinger. Reproduced by the kind per- mission of Lord Davey . . . . . . 76 XII. Day Dreams. Reproduced from the photogravure by permission of the Fine Art Society . . . . 88 I. FIGURE SUBJECTS David. (By the kind permission of James Leathart, Esq.) . 18 Helen of Troy. (By permission of Messrs. H. Graves and Co.) 18 Orpheus and Eurydice. (By the kind permission of Francis Reckitts, Esq.) . . . . . . . . 18 ix h FREDERIC LEIGHTON PAGE Venus disrobing for the Bath. (By the kind permission of Alexander Henderson, Esq.) ...... 20 Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon .... 20 D^dalus and Icarus. (By the kind permission of Alexander Henderson, Esq.) . . . . . . . . 22 A CoNDOTTiERE. (By permission of the Corporation of Birming- ham) .......... 24 The Juggling Girl. (By the kind permission of Lord Hilling- don) .......... 26 Nausicaa .......... 30 Sister’s Kiss. (By permission of the Fine Art Society) . . 32 The Last Watch of Hero. (By permission of the Corporation of Manchester) ........ 36 “And the Sea gave up the dead which were in it.” (By the kind permission of Sir Henry Tate) . . . 38 The Frigidarium. (By permission of Messrs. H. Graves and Co.) . 38 Rizpah. (By permission of Messrs. Cassell and Co.) . . 38 The Bath of Psyche. (By permission of the Berlin Photo- graphic Company) . . . . . . . . 38 The Bracelet. (By permission of Messrs. T. Agnew and Sons) 38 Fatidica. (By permission of Messrs. T. Agnew and Sons) . 38 Bacchante. (By permission of Messrs. H. Graves and Co.) . 40 Greek Girls playing at Ball. (By permission of the Berlin Photographic Company) ....... 44 Elisha and the Shunamite’s Son. (Reproduced by the kind permission of Mrs. Dyson- Perrins) . . . . . 88 “ . . . Serenely wandering in a trance of sober thought” 88 Hit. (By permission of the proprietors of the “Art Journal,” who issued a large photogravure of the picture as a special supplement) ......... 90 II. LANDSCAPES, etc. Garden at Generalife, Granada ..... 26 The Island of Angina, Pnyx in the Foreground . . 30 Ruined Mosque, Broussa ....... 90 Mimbar of the Great Mosque at Damascus ... 92 Fountain in Court at Damascus ..... 92 City of Tombs, Assiout, Egypt. ..... 92 Athens, with the Genoese Tower, Pnyx in Foreground 94 Coast of Asia Minor seen from Rhodes .... 94 Red Mountain Desert, Cairo ...... 94 X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS III, PORTRAITS Portrait of the Artist. (In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence) Portrait of the Hon. Mabel Mills. (By the kind per- mission of Lady Hillingdon) ...... Portrait of Signor Costa ....... Portrait of Captain (Sir) Richard Burton IV. STUDIES AND SKETCHES Two Early Pencil Studies ..... Scheme for a picture, “ The Plague in Florence”. First Study for “Cimabue’s Madonna” . Study for a Head — “The Dead Romeo” Byzantine Well-head. (A pencil study) A Lemon Tree. (A pencil study) .... Studies OF Foliage. Engraved by W. Hooper. (By permission of Messrs. Virtue and the Fine Art Society) From a Pencil Study ...... Study for “Elijah and the Angel” Studies for the Decoration of the Ceiling of a Music Room ......... Study for “Perseus and Andromeda” Study for a Figure in “The Bath of Psyche” Study for “Captive Andromache ” (nude) Study for “Captive Andromache ” (draped) Study for a Figure in “Captive Andromache” Study for a Figure in “The Return of Persephone” Study for “Persephone” ...... '^(From Dalziel’s “ Bible'' Gallery.” By permission of Messrs. J. S. Virtue and Co. and the Society for Promoting Christian Know- ledge) Cain and Abel . Moses views the Promised Land .... Samson and the Lion Samson carrying off the Gates .... “A Contrast” . A Study in Oils. (Head of a girl, back view) Head of a Young Girl. (A Study in oils.) (By the kind permission of Lady Halle) ...... Study of a Head ... . . . . . A Study in Oils. (Head of a girl) . . . . . Study for “The Daphnephoria ” . . . . . Study for “Solitude” . ...... PAGE 3 28 28- 68 4 6 8 10 12 14 14 16 32 36 36 38 42 42 42 44 46 52 52 52 52 52 54 56 58 60 74 90 XI FREDERIC LEIGHTON V. FRESCOES, WALL PAINTINGS, etc. PAGE Decoration for the Ceiling of a Music Room . . 36 The Industrial Arts of War. (From the fresco at South Kensington Museum) ....... 46 The Industrial Arts of Peace. (From the fresco at South Kensington Museum) ....... 48 Cupid. (From a fresco) ....... 48 Two Friezes — Music, The Dance ..... 48 Phcenicians bartering with Britons. (Panel in the Royal Exchange) ......... 50 Cartoon for Mosaic at South Kensington Museum — Pisano 50 VI. SCULPTURE The Athlete. (The bronze statue, two points of view) . . 50 Cymon ........... 50 The Sluggard ......... 50 Perseus. (Sketch in clay) ....... 50 Andromeda. (Sketch in clay) ...... 50 Design for Reverse of the Jubilee Medallion . . 88 VII. LORD LEIGHTON’S HOUSE In the Arab Hall. (From a photograph by Messrs. Bedford, Lemere and Co.) ........ 66 In the Inner Hall. (From photographs taken specially by Mr. James Hyatt) ........ 66 In the New Picture Gallery. Ditto .... 66 In the Great Studio. Ditto ...... 66 All the Photogravure Plates and half-tone blocks are by the Swan Electric Engraving Company ^ except Plate No. IV., which is by Messrs. Walker and Boutall. FREDERIC LORD LEIGHTON, P.R.A. B LIST OF DIGNITIES AND HONOURS CONFERRED ON FREDERIC LEIGHTON. Knighted, 1878; created a Baronet, 1886; created Baron Leighton of Stretton, 1896 ; elected Associate of the Royal Academy, 1864 ; Royal Academician, i86g; President of the Royal Academy, 1878 ; Hon. Mem. Royal Scottish Academy, and Royal Hibernian Academy; Associate of the Institute of France, President of the International Jury of Painting, Paris Exhibition, 1878; Hon. Member, Berlin Academy, 1886; also Member of the Royal Academy of Vienna, 1888, Belgium, 1886, of the Academy of St. Luke, Rome, and the Aca- demies of Florence (1882), Turin, Genoa, Perugia, and Antwerp (1885); Hon. D.C.L., Oxford, 1879; Hon. LL.D., Cambridge, 1879; Hon. LL.D., Edinburgh, 1884; Hon. D.Lit., Dublin, 1892; Hon. D.C.L., Durham, 1894; Hon. Fellow of Trinity College, London, 1876 ; Lieut.-Colonel of the 20th Middlesex (Artists’) Rifle Volunteers, 1876 to 1883 (resigned) ; then Hon. Colonel and holder of the Volunteer Decoration ; Commander of the Legion of Honour, 1889; Commander of the Order of Leopold ; Knight of the Prussian Order “ pour le Merite,” and of the Coburg Order Dem V erdienste. r < 7 \ s i y. r.\i \ I !■ I 7 I I’oKTKAi'r ol' TWV. AIvTIST FREDERIC LORD LEIGHTON, P.R.A. AN ILLUSTRATED CHRONICLE Chapter I HIS EARLY YEARS To Italy, at whose liberal well-head English Art has so often renewed itself, we turn again naturally for an opening to this chronicle of a great English artist’s career. Frederic Leighton was the one painter of our time who strove hardest to keep an Italian ideal of beauty alive in London ; therefore it is in Italy, the Italy of Raphael and Angelo and his favourite Giotteschi, that we must seek the true beginnings of his art. London made its first acquaintance with him and his paint- ing in 1855, when the picture, Cimabue s Madonna carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence^ startled the Royal Academy, and proved that a ’prentice work could be in its way something of a masterpiece. This pidture, the work of an un- known young artist of twenty-five, painted chiefly in Rome, showed at once a new force and a new quality, and in its singular feeling for certain of the archaic Italian schools, showed, too, where for the moment the sympathies of the painter really lay. How far the potentiality disclosed in it was developed during the forty years following, how far the ideals in art, that it seemed to declare, were pursued or departed from, the Royal Academy year by year is witness. Here, before we turn to consider the history of those later years, we shall find it interesting to use this first pidture as an index to that period of probation, which is so often the most interesting part of an artist’s history. In account- ing for it, and finding out the determining experiences of the 3 FREDERIC LEIGHTON artist’s pupilage, we shall account, also, for much that came after ; although Frankfort and Paris play their part, the formative influences of that early period, we shall find, carry us chiefly, and again and again, into Italy. Frederic Leighton was born on the 3rd of December, 1830, at Scarborough, the son of a medical pradtitioner. His father. Dr. Frederic Leighton, was also the son of a physician who was knighted for eminence in his profession. Thus we have two generations of medicine and culture in the family ; but there is no sign of art, or love for art, before the third. This generation produced three children, all devoted to the graphic arts and to music, of whom the boy, Frederic, was the eldest. A word or two more must be given to his forbears, on grounds of charadter and heredity, before we pass. Sir James Leighton, the grandfather, was Physician to the Court at St. Petersburg, where he served in succession Alexander the First, and Nicholas, with whom he was on terms of considerable intimacy. His son, Dr. Frederic Leighton, who promised to be a still more brilliant pradtitioner, was educated at Stonyhurst, but after taking his M.D. degree at Edinburgh, just as he was rapidly acquiring the highest professional reputation, contradled an unlucky cold that led to a partial deafness. This made it impossible for him to go on pradtising with safety, and retiring to his study, he turned from physical to metaphysical pursuits. In spite of his deafness, as severe an embargo on social reputation as can well be laid. Dr. Leighton is said to have been equally noted among his friends for his keen intelledtual quality and his urbanity. He was, in short, “ A man and a gentleman! ” to use the old formula. To be the son of his father, then, counted for something in our hero’s career. Even in art, which Dr. Leighton did not care for particularly, the boy had very great opportunities. Before he was ten years old, he went abroad with his mother, who was in ill health ; and already he had shown such decided signs of the furor pingendi during a chance visit to Mr. Lance’s studio in Paris, that it is without surprise that we hear of him in 1840 as taking drawing lessons from Signor F. Meli, at Rome. During these early travels the boy’s sketch books were full (we are told) of precociously clever things. The climadleric moment came early in his career. At Florence, in 1844, when he was fourteen, he delivered himself of a sort of boyish ulti- matum to his father, who, after taking counsel of Hiram Powers, 4 I k HIS EARLY YEARS the American sculptor, wisely gave the boy his wish, and de- cided to let him be an artist. Powers when asked, “ Shall I make him an artist ? ” exclaimed in no uncertain terms, Sir, you have no choice in the matter, he is one already ; ” and on further question, the father being anxious about the boy’s possi- bilities, said, “ He may become as eminent as he pleases.” Few art students of our time appear to have encountered more fortunate conditions, on the whole, than did Frederic Leighton in the years immediately following. The Florentine school of fifty years ago, however, was not the best for a new beginner. It was full of mannerisms, which a boy of that age was sure to pick up, and exaggerate on his own account. At that time Bezzuoli and Servolini were the great lights and diredtors of the Academy of the Fine Arts, and they delighted, naturally, in so able and so apt a pupil ; that he found it hard to shake off their teaching becomes evident later. Those who had the good fortune at any time to have heard Lord Leighton describe his early wanderings in Europe, must have been struck by the warmth of his tribute to Johann Eduard Steinle, the Frankfort master, who did more than any other to corredt his style, and to decide the whole future bent of his art. Steinle ! — the name is barely known to us in England. He was one of that remarkable school of painters, called familiarly “the Nazarenes,” because of their religious range of subjedls, and inspired originally by Overbeck and Pfiihler. Leighton in recent years described him as “an intensely fervent Catholic;” a man of most striking personality, and of most courtly manners, whose influence upon younger men was fairly magnetic. In the case of this particular pupil, certainly, his intervention was of most powerful effedl. Religious in his methods, as well as in his sentiment of art, the florid insincerities and mannerisms of the Florentine Academy, as they were still to be seen in the young Leighton’s work, found in him an admirable chastener. But it took many years of painfully hard work, lasting until 1852, to undo the evil wrought by decadent Florence. Prior to this fortunate intercourse with Steinle, the student had an old acquaintance with Frankfort, which, like Florence, seemed destined to play a great part in his history. Before going to Florence, and deciding on his artistic career, in 1844, he had been sent to school in Frankfort. He returned there from Florence to resume his general education, and on leaving at seventeen, went for a year to the Stiidtelsches Institut. 5 FREDERIC LEIGHTON So, to 1848, when he went to Brussels, and worked there for a time without any master, painting the first pidlure that deserves to be remembered. Characteristically enough, this depicted Cimabue finding Giotto in the Fields of Florence. The shepherd boy is engaged in drawing the figure of a lamb upon a smooth rock, using a piece of coal for pencil ; an admirable and precocious piece of work. At the time it was first shown it was considered especially good in its harmonious and original colouring; nor did a sight of it in 1896 at the Winter Ex- hibition of the Royal Academy contradict the generous verdiCt of contemporary critics. At Brussels he painted a portrait of himself, a notable thing of its kind, wherein we see a slight, dark youth, with a face of much charm and distinction, whose features one easily sees to be like those of later portraits. Then, immediately before the return to Frankfort, and the studying (with a difference) there, under Steinle, Leighton spent some months in Paris, working in an atelier in the Rue Richer. The conditions of this most informal of life-schools were such as Henri Murger, who was alive and writing at the time, might have approved, but were hardly to be called educative in any higher sense. The only master that these Bohemians could boast was a very invertebrate old artist, who seems to have been the soul of politeness and irresponsibility, and who accompanied every weak criticism with the deprecatory conclusion, “ Voila mon opinion ! ” “ M. Voila mon opinion !” is a type not unknown otherwhere than in that Paris atelier. A fine alterative the student must have found the severe and stringent tonics that Steinle prescribed immediately afterwards in Frankfort. In the admirable monograph on “Sir Frederic Leighton” by Mrs. Andrew Lang, from which we have drawn on occasion in these pages, an interesting account is given of an exploit at Darmstadt, in which the young artist took a chief part. An artists’ festival was to be held there, and Sir Frederic and one of his fellow-students. Signor Gamba, took it into their heads to paint a pidlure for the occasion on the walls of an old ruined castle near the town. The design was speedily sketched after the most approved medieval fashion, and no time was lost in executing the work. “ The subjedt was a knight standing on the threshold of the castle, welcoming the guests, while in the centre of the pidture was Spring, receiving the representatives of the three arts, all of them caricatures of well-known figures. In 6 ■stl' I'ROJKCT FOR A I'ICTRRF. ; ■■ THF I'LAOUK IN FLOREAX'E 'i' Jki i HIS EARLY YEARS one corner were the two young artists themselves, surveying the pageant. The schloss where this piece was painted is still in ruins, but the Grand Duke has lately eredted a wooden roof over the painting, to preserve it from destrudlion.” Before leaving Frankfort, young Leighton had already in- terested Steinle in his projedted pidture of Cima hue's Madonna, and the design for it was made under Steinle’s diredlion. Under his diredt influence, too, and inspired by Boccaccio, another Florentine pidlure — a cartoon of its great plague — was painted. In speaking of the dramatic treatment of its subjedl, Mrs. Lang describes “ the contrast between the merry revellers on one side of the pidture and the death-cart and its pile of corpses on the other, while in the centre is the link between the two — a terror- stricken woman attempting to escape with her baby from the pestilence-stricken city. We shall look in vain among the President’s later works for any pidture with a similar motij'. In general he shared Plato’s opinion — that violent passions are un- suitable subjedts for art ; not so much because the sight of them is degrading, as because what is at once hideous and transitory in its nature should not be perpetuated.” We have seen how the spirit and sentiment of Italy con- tinually remained by the artist in his German studio, and how in Frankfort his artistic imagination returned again and again to Florence, and to the early Florentines of his particular adoration — Cimabue and Giotto. The recall to Italy came inevitably, as Steinle’s teaching at last had fully worked its purpose. Steinle himself counselled the move, and gave his favourite pupil an in- trodudlion to Cornelius in Rome. It was to Rome, therefore, and not to Florence, that the young artist went. To Rome ! where sooner or later the steps of all men who work for art or for religion tend, and where so few stay. This was in 1852, the year which was represented in the Commemorative Exhibition at Burlington House by A Persian Pedlar, a small full-length figure of a man in Oriental costume, seated cross-legged on a divan, with a long pipe in his hand. To 1853 belongs a Portrait of Miss Laing (Lady Nias), which was shown again at the same time. The Rome of the mid-century was Rome at its best, with much artistic stimulus of the present, as well as of the past. The English colony was particularly strong. Thackeray was there, moving about after his wont in the studios' and salons; the Brownings were there, and in their prime. The young painter 7 FREDERIC LEIGHTON and his work, including the Cimabue’ s Madonna in its earlier stages, made a great impression on Thackeray, who turned prophet for once on the strength of it. On returning to London and meeting Millais, he prophesied gaily to that ardent pre- Raphaelite, then marching on from success to success: “ Millais! my boy, I have met in Rome a versatile young dog called Leighton, who will one of these days run you hard for the presidentship ! ” This was early days for such a rumour to reach the Academy, who knew an older school, represented by Landseer and Eastlake, and a younger school, represented by Millais and Rossetti, but as yet knew not Leighton. That Thackeray’s pro- phecy became literally true is obvious enough, but that both of the great painters were never rivals in the least degree is also a patent truth. It is a curious instance of two really notable artists so entirely separated by their individuality that the most dense person could never place them in rivalry. Millais, incomparably greater than Leighton in many respedls, descended to pot-boilers ; Leighton at his worst never attempted to win the applause of the mob, and kept “ beauty ” — at times degraded to artificial prettiness — as his ideal. Among the leading artists in Rome at this time, beside Cornelius, were the two French painters, Bouguereau and Gerome. To these, and especially to Bouguereau, who was a great believer in “ scientific composition,” the young Leighton was, on his own testimony, largely indebted for his fine sense of form. Yet another famous Frenchman, Robert Fleury, whom he met however in Paris, and not in Rome, may be mentioned here, since from him he learnt much in the way of colouring, and the technique of his art. Turning from the painters to the poets, it was at Rome that Robert Browning, who was at this time writing his “ Men and Women,” formed close acquaintance with the young artist. Something of the atmosphere which permeates such poems as “ Bishop Blougram’s Apology,” “ Andrea del Sarto,” and others of the same series, seems to linger yet in the record of those early meetings of poets and painters, with all their associations : “ The Vatican, Greek busts, Venetian paintings, Roman walls, And English books.” One easily supposes Browning speaking through his Bishop Blougram, as, it is said, he was heard to speak in those days in 8 CIMABUK'S .MADOXXA CAUR[l-:i) IX I'UOCKSSIOX TIIROrCIII RLOREXCE ' HIS EARLY YEARS praise of Correggio; that Correggio to whose qualities, Ruskin tells us, Sir Frederic Leighton curiously approximates : “’Twere pleasant could Correggio’s fleeting glow Hang full in face of one where’er one roams. Since he more than the others brings with him Italy’s self — the marvellous Modenese ! ” Italy’s self, in truth, Frederic Leighton, like Browning in poetry, has not failed to bring with him, and revived for us for many years, by his art and southern glow of colour, in the gray heart of London. Among other people whom Leighton met in Rome were George Sand, Mrs. Kemble, George Mason the painter (of Harvest Moon fame), Gibson the sculptor, and Lord Lyons. Like Robert Browning, let us add, he was readily responsive to the quickening of his contemporaries, and vigorously studied the present in order that he might the better paint the past, and put live souls into the archaic raiment of Cimabue and old Florence. He was working hard all this while, with a devotion and concentration that impressed other friends beside Thackeray, upon his picture of Cunabue’ s Madonna. But time went on, and the day was approaching when it must be despatched, if it was to reach its destination in London before the date appointed for the 1855 Academy, and still it was not completed. The first study for the pidture (here reproduced) differs from the finished work ; in which by th'e advice of the painter Cornelius the head of the procession has been turned so that it faces the spedlator. The pidture reached the Academy in time after all, and as the work of an unknown hand made a distindt sensation. It was discussed, angrily by some, delightedly by others. The criticism which Rossetti, Mr. Ruskin, and other critics bestowed upon it in the press or in private correspondence^ will come more fitly into our later pages, when we turn to deal with contem- porary opinions upon Leighton’s work. Enough to say here that it won fame for the artist at a stroke. The Queen bought it for £600 (having bespoken it, I believe, before it left his studio), and hung it eventually in Buckingham Palace. With this en- couraging first great success, the probationary stage of our artist’s history may be said to close. * See pages 69-76. 9 c chapter II YEAR BY YEAR— 1855 to 1864 The Academy of forty years ago was very different from that we know to-day. It was held in the left wing of the National Gallery, and had not nearly so much space at its disposal as it has now in its present quarters at Burlington House. The exhibition of 1855 contained few pictures, as compared with the multi- tudinous items of the present shows. Generally speaking, the exhibition was of a heavier, more Georgian aspedl, in spite of certain Pre-Raphaelite experiments and other signs of the coming of a younger generation. Sir Charles Eastlake was President. Professor Hart was delivering lectures to its students, full of academic, respedlable intelligence, if little more ; ledtures which those who are curious may find reported in full in the “ Athenaum ” of that time. More interesting was the appearance of Mr. Ruskin as com- mentator on the piftures of the Academy in this year, the first in which he issued his characteristic “Academy Notes.” His long, and, all things considered, remarkably appreciative criticism of the Cimabue s Madonna we discuss elsewhere (p. 69). Of another pidture of Italy by a very different painter, which was considered a masterpiece by some critics, we find him speaking in terms of monition : “ Is it altogether too late to warn him that he is fast becoming nothing more than an Academician?” The one pidlure of the year, according to Mr. Ruskin, was the Rescue, by Millais. “ It is the only great pidture exhibited this year,” he writes, “ but this is very great.” For the rest, A Scene from As You Like It, by Maclise ; another Shakspearean subjedt, the inevitable Lear and Cordelia, by Herbert ; and a Beatrice by the then President (which a frank critic described with some truth as “flabby and expressionless ”), and we have recalled everything that served to give the Academy of that year its distindtion in the eyes of contemporary critics. Sir Edwin Landseer, who to 10 • jj -■;== ■ i i 4 YEAR BY YEAR- 1 85 5 TO 1864 the outer world was the one great fadl in the art of the time, does not appear to have exhibited in 1855, Looking back now to that date, what one discerns chiefly is the emergence of the Pre-Raphaelites from the more conven- tional multitude that were taking up the artistic traditions (not very inspiring, as we consider them now) of the first half of the century. Millais, Rossetti, Holman Hunt, and their associates, count to us, to-day, as the representatives of an earlier genera- tion ; in 1855 they still stood for all that was daring, unprece- dented, and adventurous in their art. This newcomer, with his Cimabue s Madonna in a new style, puzzled the critics considerably. They did not know quite how to allot him in their casual division of contemporary schools. “ Landseer and Maclise we know ; and Millais and Holman Hunt; but who is Leighton?” was the tenor of their com- mentary. Meanwhile an event of great significance to English Art in this year was happening — an exhibition of English pictures, not in London, but in Paris ; the first of its kind. This beginning of such international exchanges was important ; it has led up to many striking modifications of both English and French schools since that date. It is curious that it should coincide with the awakening to certain other foreign influences : that of the early Italian school upon the Pre-Raphaelites, and that of the later Italian, popularly known as “ the classic school,” upon Leighton and Mr. G. F. Watts. Of this exhibition of English pictures, which was held in the Avenue Montaigne, M, Ernest Chesneau, a critic very sym- pathetic to English art, tells us, in his admirable book on the “ English School of Painting,” that “for the French it was a revelation of a style and a school of the very existence of which they had hitherto had no idea ; and whether owing to its novelty, or the surprise it occasioned, or, indeed, to its real merit, what- ever may have been the true cause, most certain it is that the English, until then little thought of and almost unknown abroad, obtained in France a great success.” M. Chesneau, in going on to account further for the great impression made by the English painters in Paris, attributes it largely to the singularity which, for foreign eyes, marks their work. It is curious, indeed, that French critics, and M. Chesneau among them, really admire this singularity, which they count distinctively British. They look for it in our pictures, and if FREDERIC LEIGHTON they do not find it (as in the work of Leighton) they feel aggrieved. British eccentricity, whether thinking its way with the aid of genius into “ Pre-Raphaelitism,” or now again, with the aid of extreme cleverness and talent, into certain cruder forms of “ im- pressionism,” is sure of its effed:. But an art like Leighton’s, whose aim is beauty and not eccentricity, is apt to be slighted by both French and English critics, with some notable exceptions. Not all its grace, its classic quality, its beauty of line and dis- tinction of treatment, avail it, when it comes into conflict with doctrinaire theories on the one hand, and a love for mere sensa- tionalism on the other. The success of his picture at the Academy, and the incidental lionizing of a season, did not tempt the artist to stay long in London ; yet he did not return to Italy. Instead, he went to Paris, where he settled himself in a studio and proceeded to com- plete his T^riumph of Music, and other pictures begun in Rome. By this time, the painter’s method might seem assured, but Paris was still able to add something to his style, with the aid of such masters as Fleury. English critics, who expeCted The Triumph of Music to sustain the reputation won by Cimabue' s Madonna, were disappointed — partly because Orpheus was repre- sented as playing a violin, in place of the traditional lyre ; it must not be forgotten that in 1855 the “fiddle” had not become a favourite instrument for lady amateurs. To those who will examine and compare them more carefully, there is no such dis- crepancy. The Triumph of Music : Orpheus by the power of his Art redeems his wife from Hades, tY try as distinctive a performance as the Cimabue’ s Madonna (as indeed it was conceived and painted largely under the same conditions), was nevertheless not a popular success. Certainly, it marks, as clearly as anything can, the sense of colour, the sense of form, the draughtsmanship, the immensely cultured eye and hand, first discovered to the English critics by its predecessor. It was sold after the painter’s death. An anecdote regarding it which appeared in the “ Daily Chronicle ” is worth noting here : “ A curious piece of painter’s biography belongs to this canvas. It followed on his first great success, the Cimabue Pro- cession picture, exhibited in 1855 and bought by the Queen, and it was received with a volley of hostile criticisms from the press. The young painter was cut to the quick ; indeed, in later life he was sensitive under censure, even where, as in this case, he 12 ]>EN'CIL STUDY OF A liVZANTIXE \V]:LL-I I I'.AD YEAR BY YEAR-1855 TO 1864 did not think it intelligent or just. The picture passed out of sight, and not even his most familiar friends knew what had become of it. Three or four days ago [that is, just before the sale of Lord Leighton’s pictures at Christie’s] it was found rolled up in a cellar at his house ; and nowthat it has been hurriedly mounted and framed it bears no sign of the wear and tear of forty years.” ^ At the sale it fetched one hundred and fifty-five guineas. Of certain other works painted in 1856, 1857, and 1858, some of which never found their way to the Academy, little need be said. To this period belong two pictures painted in Paris, the one. Pan under a fig-tree, with a quotation from Keats’s “ Endymion ” : “ O thou, to whom Broad-leaved fig-trees even now foredoom Their ripened heritage,” and the other, a pendant to it, A Nymph and Cupid. Salome., the Daughter of Herodias, painted in 1857, appar- ently not exhibited at the Academy, represents a small full-length figure in white drapery, with her arms above her head, which is crowned with flowers ; behind her stands a female musician. Another, shown in 1858 at the Royal Academy, and again in the 1897 retrospective exhibition, was first entitled 'The Fisherman and Syren., and afterwards The Mermaid ; it is a composition of two small full-length figures, a mermaid clasping a fisherman round the neck. The subjedl is taken from a ballad by Goethe : “ Half drew she him. Half sunk he in. And never more was seen.” In the same year was a painting inspired by “ Romeo and Juliet,” entitled Count Paris, accompanied by Friar Laurence, comes to the house of the Capulets to claim his bride; he finds ffuHet stretched, apparently lifeless, on the bed. The picture shows, in addition to the figures named in its formal title, the father and mother of Juliet bending over their daughter’s body, and through an opening beyond numerous figures at the foot of the staircase. The latter year marked the painter’s return to London, where he entered more actively into its artistic life than he had done hitherto, and made closer acquaintance with the Pre-Raphaelites, who were already entering upon their second and maturer stage. To take Rossetti : it was in 1856 that he made those five * “A stupid tale which we have already corre6led.” — Athenieum, Oilober 9th, 1897. 13 FREDERIC LEIGHTON notable designs to illustrate “ Poems by Alfred Tennyson,” which Moxon and Co. published in the following year ; an event that, for the first time, really introduced him to the public at large. To 1857, belongs Rossetti’s Blue Closet and Damsel of the Sangrael^ both painted for Mr. W. Morris. And in 1857 and 1858, the famous and hapless distemper pictures on the walls of the Union Debating Society’s room at Oxford, were engaging Rossetti and his associates, including Sir (then Mr.) Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris, Mr. Val. Prinsep, Mr. Arthur Hughes, and Mr. R. Spencer Stanhope. It was in the summer of 1858, Mr. F. G. Stephens tells us, that the original Hogarth Club was founded, of which the two Rossettis were prominent instigators, — one of the most notable of the many protestant societies that have sprung up at different times from a slightly anti-Academic bias. It is interesting to find that Leighton’s famous Lemon Tree drawing in silverpoint was exhibited here. The Hogarth Club held its meetings at 178, Piccadilly, in the first instance; removed afterwards to 6, Waterloo Place, Pall Mall, and finally dissolved, after existing for four seasons, in 1861. To speak of other painters more or less associated with Rossetti and his school, Mr. Holman Hunt, whose Light of the World had greatly struck Paris in 1855, exhibited his Scapegoat at the Academy of 1856, a picture which called from Mr. Ruskin immense praise, and a charaderistic protest : “ I pray him to paint a few pidures with less feeling in them, and more hand- ling.” Of Millais we have already spoken. In 1856 he ex- hibited The Child of the Regiment, Peace Concluded, and Autumn Leaves, — paintings in which there was a predominance of reds, extending even to the hair of the children ; so that one contem- porary critic, whose facetiousness exceeded his wit, conjedured that Mr. Millais’s happy village was Sweet Auburn I In 1859 Leighton showed three pidures at the Academy. One, A Roman Lady (then called La Nanna), a half-length black-haired figure, facing the spedator, in Italian costume ; another, now called Nanna, then entitled Pavonia, a half-length figure of a girl in Italian costume, with peacock’s feathers in the background ; and Sunny Hours, which seems to have escaped record so far. The same year saw another of his pidures, Samson and Delilah, exhibited at Suffolk Street. We must not pass by the famous Study oj a Lemon Tree (now at Oxford), mentioned above, without quoting the praise 14 A LiAKjx. IX l■l•:x(•ll. (I.RKA n.V KI-.Dff Kill 1 ' ' } i YEAR BY YEAR-i 855 TO 1864 by Mr. Ruskin, which made it famous. Mr. Ruskin couples it with another drawing, both of which we have been fortunately able to reproduce in our pages. These “ two perfect early draw- ings,” he writes, “ are of A Lemon Lree^ and another of the same date, of A Byzantine Well, which determine for you without appeal, the question respecting necessity of delineation as the first skill of a painter. Of all our present masters Sir Frederic Leighton delights most in softly-blended colours, and his ideal of beauty is more nearly that of Correggio than any seen since Correggio’s time. But you see by what precision of terminal outline he at first restrained, and exalted, his gift of beautiful vaghezzaT The Lemon Tt-ee study, let us add, was drawn at Capri in the spring of 1859. Here, and elsewhere in the South of Europe, whither the artist returned, escaping from London at every opportunity, many other notable studies and drawings were made during this period. Some of these were employed long since for the back- grounds of pictures familiar to us all. Others, faithful studies of nature, small oil and water-colour drawings, chiefly landscape, were scarce known to the general public during the painter’s life, but were eagerly competed for at the sale of his pictures in July, 1896. The little picture of Capri at Sunrise was hung in the Academy of i860, the painter’s only contribution of that year. In the year following, we find another small picture of Capri, together with five others, some of which played their part in winning for the artist his wider recognition. Meanwhile, the artist was drawing his London ties closer. In i860 he took up his abode at 2, Orme Square, where he continued to reside until he built his famous house in Holland Park Road, some years later. His art did not for this reason become more like London, or more infeCted with that British singularity which some critics would seem to demand. On the contrary, Italy and the South, the glow of colour, the perfection of form, the plastic exquisiteness, which mark for us his mature performances, and which follow after classic ideals, were more and more clearly to be discerned in the remarkable cycle of pictures associated with this part of his career. In 1861 he painted portraits of his sister, Mrs. Sutherland Orr, and of Mr. ‘John Hanson Walker, the former shown at the Academy, where also hung Paolo e Francesca, A Dream, Lieder ohne Worte, J. A. — a Study, and Capri — Paganos. Rossetti, writing of this exhibition, says : “ Leighton might, as you say, have made a burst had not his pictures been ill-placed mostly — 15 FREDERIC LEIGHTON indeed, one of them (the only very good one, Lteder ohne Worte) is the only instance of very striking unfairness in the place.” i In 1862 there were no less than six of the artist’s pictures at the May exhibition of the Academy : the Odalisque, a very popular work, shows a draped female figure, in a very Leigh tonesque pose, with her arm above her head, leaning against a wall by the water. She holds a peacock’s feather screen in her left hand, while a swan in the water at her feet cranes its head upwards towards her ; Michael Angelo nursing his dying Servant, a group of two three- quarter length figures ; the servant reclining in an armchair with his head resting against the shoulder of Michael Angelo — a fairly powerful but somewhat academic version of the incident — which looks at first glance like the work of a not very im- portant “ old master The Star of Bethlehem, showing one of the Magi on the terrace of his house looking at the strange star in the East, while below are indications of a revel he has just left. Duett, Sisters, Sea Echoes, and Rustic Music, also belong to this year. In 1863 he showed Eucharis, a half-length figure of a white- robed girl, with a basket of fruit on her head ; 'Jezebel and Ahab ; A Cross-bow Man ; and A Girl Feeding Peacocks ; with these we complete the list of his work as an outsider. ’ Letter to William Allingham, May loth, 1861. 16 \ I’ I- k( )M J'.XCIl ,siri)\ m » ► GOLDEN HOURS 4 . ; t ’ y-,:/- / ■’* .- Chapter M: ;■ r t : ,* - 1-; ■ -l' !#v . r ^ U. BY " YEAR— r ^ ( In i 86^ tht seal of the Roy^ri Ir *• » *.v^^ *diese ri^ch /[^ntt'ihutio'ns to En^li : c •.^'- an Associate.' To its «m7itner ex [»*(;»• t- hr ^^ures/sho^aH^‘great'dirJ‘^ ' ’»> > ' X}cntc ‘in Kxj/d^ Orpiteus 'and\l^ti*\' . ■ f»m oEtKese,' oiic^of thr mosr fehj.i' -ii ' English ‘schooliim which'"* ‘ ypy*'.;; :. f ugure5''Somethirtg thah life-bhu . I" i1u-e I the"** f^adisc ” . i’ : ■. ■ ‘'TU..,, liuh ^ow '‘ruH the -,0U' : -r 'hv . r- . ' ■ ■* *t‘ in ■ the pal^»Cc -'•t •■ ‘ K Kc 13 dici.' - ' B strongly n h B iheur him. ' R didJy a(id Vi tF-* ^ mdoJvai • . ■ ■ pvcrfi - -U''. ^ ' H^nibabi , b' ^■bCiaat’'’t 'iP /.j, Bw«rhile k ^ ■ 4 -jinc i p- •* r ( 7 V,' ' 'H) : ■ b C y* V..,|_’|' in. flK. ’‘•’Of Iff % 4 ' Chapter III YEAR BY YEAR— 1864 to 1869 In 1864 the seal of the Royal Academy was at length set on these rich contributions to English Art, and the artist was made an Associate. To its summer exhibition he contributed three pidlures, showing great and various power in their composition. Dante in Exile, Orpheus ajid Eurydice, and Golden Hours. The first of these, one of the most remarkable pictures of our modern English school, in which “ Dante ” appears, is a large work, with figures something less than life-size. It illustrates the verses in the “ Paradiso ” : “ Thou shalt prove How salt the savour is of others’ bread ; How hard the passage, to descend and climb By others’ stairs. But that shall gall thee most Will be the worthless and vile company With whom thou must be thrown into the straits, For all ungrateful, impious all and mad Shall turn against thee.” “ Dante, in fulfilment of this prophecy, is seen descending the palace stairs of the Can Grande, at Verona, during his exile. He is dressed in sober grey and drab clothes, and contrasts strongly in his ascetic and suffering aspedl with the gay revellers about him. The people are preparing for a festival, and splen- didly and fantastically robed, some bringing wreaths of flowers. Bowing with mock reverence, a jester gibes at Dante. An indolent sentinel is seated at the porch, and looks on uncon- cernedly, his spear lying across his breast. A young man, probably acquainted with the writing of Dante, sympathises with him. In the centre and just before the feet of Dante, is a beautiful child, brilliantly dressed and crowned with flowers, and dragging along the floor a garland of bay leaves and flowers, while looking earnestly and innocently in the poet’s face. Next come a pair of lovers, the lady looking at Dante with attention, 17 D FREDERIC LEIGHTON the man heedless. The last wears a vest embroidered with eyes like those in a peacock’s tail. A priest and a noble descend the stairs behind, jeering at Dante.” ^ It was the Golden Hours which, though perhaps less memor- able and imaginative than the others, won the greatest popular success of the three, a success beyond anything that the artist had so far painted. As this pidlure is here reproduced, description is needless, except so far as regards the colour of the background, which is literally golden. The dress of the lady who leans upon the spinet is white, embroidered with flowers. The Orpheus and Eurydtce showed that the old friendship, formed originally in Rome, between the painter and Robert Browning, was main- tained. Some of the poet’s lines served as a text for the pifture ; and as they are little known we repeat them here : “ But give them me — the mouth, the eyes, the brow — Let them once more absorb me ! One look now Will lap me round for ever, not to pass Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond. Hold me but safe again within the bond Of one immortal look ! All woe that was. Forgotten, and all terror that may be. Defied, — no past is mine, no future ! look at me ! ” To this year, also, belongs a portrait of The late Mrs. Lavinia r Anson, a circular panel showing the sky for background. This was exhibited again in the winter Academy of 1897. In 1865 the artist showed once again his eclectic sympathies, by the variety of the subjeft-pidtures that he sent to the Academy, ranging from David to Helen of Troy. In his tenderly conceived David, the Psalmist is seen gazing at two doves in the sky above ; he, sunk in a profound reverie, is seated upon a house-top overlooking some neighbouring hills. The whole is large in its handling and treatment, and in the simplicity of its drapery recalls several of the famous illustrations the artist contributed to Dalziel’s Bible Gallery. It was exhibited with the quotation, “ Oh, that I had wings like a dove ! for then would I fly away and be at rest.” With the delightful Helen of Troy we are recalled to the third book of the Iliad, when Iris bids Helen go and see the general truce made pending the duel between Paris and Menelaus, of which she is to be the prize. So Helen, having summoned her maids and “ shadowed her graces with white veils,” rose and passed along the ramparts of Troy. In ^ “ Athenaeum,” April, 1864. 18 I)A\II> r.Y l'KkMI>-.|"N (i| MK"k'-. lll.NkV ',k\\l,' AM' iii.i.EX oi- rki)\' i V .■1 i \ • }, I ( )RI'IIKUS AM) Krk\’()T('l . v-t|l ■m YEAR BY YEAR-1864 TO 1869 the pidiure the light falls on her shoulders and her hair, while her face and the whole of the front of her form are shadowed over, with somewhat mystical effedf. To the same year belongs In St. Mark's., a pidlure of a lady with a child in her arms leaving the church, a lovely and finished study of colour ; I'he W idow s Prayer ; and Mother and Child^ a graceful reminder of a gentler world than Helen’s. In 1866 the critics had at last a work which seemed to them to follow the lines of the Cimabue' s Madonna. This was the radiant and lovely pidfure of the Syracusan Bride leading Wild Beasts in Procession to the Pefnple of Diana. The composition of this remarkable painting deserves to be closely studied, for it is very characteristic of Sir Frederic Leighton’s theories of art, and his convidfion of the necessarily decorative effedf of such works. A terrace of white marble, whose line is refledted and repeated by the line of white clouds in the sky painting above, affords the figures of the procession a delightful setting. The Syracusan bride leads a lioness, and these are followed by a train of maidens and wild beasts, the last reduced to a pidtorial seemliness and decorative calm, very fortunate under the circumstances. The procession is seen approaching the door of the temple, and a statue of Diana serves as a last note in the ideal harmonies of form and colour to which the whole is attuned. As compared with the Cimabue's Madonna., it is a more finished piece of work, and the handling throughout is more assured. It was as much an advance, technically, upon that, as the Dap line phoria., which crowned the artist’s third decade, was upon this. According to popular report, it was this pidture of the Syracusan Bride which decided his future eledtion as a full member of the Academy ; but as a matter of fadt, it was in 1 869 that this eledtion took place. The pidture, let us add, was suggested to the painter by a passage in the second Idyll of Theocritus : “ And for her then many other wild beasts were going in procession round about, and among them a lioness.” Phe Painter s Honeymoon and a Portrait of Mrs. yames Guthrie were also exhibited this year ; and the wall- painting of The Wise and Foolish Virgins., at Lyndhurst, in the New Forest, was executed during the summer. In its next exhibition, that of 1867, the Academy held live pidtures by the artist, including the delightful Pastoral, two small full-length figures of a shepherd and a girl standing in a landscape — he is teaching her to play the pipes, — which again might be considered a painter’s translation from Theocritus, and 19 FREDERIC LEIGHTON the Venus Disrobing for the Bath, one of the most debated of all the artist’s paintings of the nude. The paleness of the flesh-tints of this Venus aroused a criticism which has often been urged against his pictures — that such a hue was not in nature. In im- parting an ideal effedt to an ideal subjedt, Leighton always, how- ever, followed his own convidtion — that art has a law of its own, and a harmony of colour and form, derived and seledted no doubt from natural loveliness, but not to be referred too closely to the natural, or to the average, in these things. To the 1868 Academy Leighton contributed another biblical theme, fonathan^s Token to David. With this were four others, as widely varying in subjedl and conception as need be desired. One was a very charming portrait of a very pretty woman, Mrs. Frederic P. Cockerell. Then follow three more in that cycle of classic subjedts, of which the painter never tired. The full title of the first runs, Ariadne abandoned by Theseus: Ariadne watches for his return : Artemis releases her by death. In it the figure of Ariadne, clothed in white drapery, is seen lying on a rocky promontory overlooking the sea. Acme and Septimius is a circular pidture, with two small full-length figures reclining on a marble bench. This extradl from Sir Theodore Martin’s translation of Catullus was appended to its title in the catalogue : “ Then bending gently back her head. With that sweet mouth so rosy red, Upon his eyes she dropped a kiss, Intoxicating him with bliss.” A love song on canvas, a pidtorial transcript from Catullus, it was perhaps the most popular of his pidlures this year. The last of these was Adicea, the Nymph of the Shore. It represents a small full-length nude figure lying on white drapery by the sea- shore. Adtasa is a lovely figure, full of that grace which he so well knew how to impart to his idealized figures. After this year, at any rate, there could be no longer any doubt but that the artist’s power really lay in the creation of ideal forms ; whether presented in monomime or combined in poetic and decorative groups, called up from the wonderful limbo of classic myth and history. With 1869 came Eleblra at the Tomb of Agamemnon, a memorable pidfure, full of charadteristic effedts of colour and composition, and a notable exercise in the grand style; this, considered from any side, must be seen to be the outcome of a unique faculty, so unprecedented in English art as to run every 20 \ k;m s l)I>lI0N 0^ IHE ‘ ORI'OKA I ION 0^ BIKMIN'>HAM \ ( ()M )! )TTI I i; I ¥ i I '-rr t r YEAR BY YEAR-1870 TO 1878 day, “ one of the most subtle and fortunate produdlions of the painter.” Moretta is, indeed, a delightful young woman, robed in green, with masses of loosely arranged hair, and a tender and delicate face. Weaving the Wreath, shown the same year (and again in the Guildhall, 1895), is a very charming figure of quite a young girl seated on a carpet upon a raised step at the foot of a building. Behind her is a bas-relief, against which her head, crowned by a chaplet of flowers, tells out with sculpturesque effedt ; the sharp, vertical line of thread strained between her hands, and thence in diagonal line to the ball at her feet, is curiously rigid, and by contrast makes the draperies across which it is silhouetted appear still more mobile. We are passing over, deliberately, the artist’s decorative masterpieces of this period, — the South Kensington frescoes to wit ; of which the Arts of War belongs to the year 1872, and its companion. Arts of Peace, to 1873. These works will be found treated at length in a later chapter on the artist’s decorative work. In the Academy of 1874 appeared four pictures, the most important being the heroic painting, — Clytemnestra fro 7 n the Battlemefits of Argos watches for the Be aeon fires which are to announce the Pet urn of Agamemnon. In this picture, the figure of Clytemnestra is seen standing eredt, with hands folded, support- ing the drapery that clothes a majestic form. For further description, we may be content to quote that given at the time in the appreciative art columns of the “ Athen^um : ” “ There is the grandeur of Greek tragedy in Mr. Leighton’s Clytemnestra watching for the signal of her husband’s return from Troy. The time is deep in the fateful night, while the city sleeps ; moonlight floods the walls, the roofs, the gates, and the towers with a ghastly glare, which seems presageful, and casts shadows as dark as they are mysterious and terrible. The dense blue of the sky is dim, sad, and ominous. But the most ominous and impressive element of the picture is a grim figure, the tall woman on the palace roof before us, who looks Titanic in her stateliness, and huge beyond humanity in the voluminous white drapery that wraps her limbs and bosom. Her hands are clenched and her arms thrust down straight and rigidly, each finger locked as in a struggle to strangle its fellow ; the muscles swell on the bulky limbs. Drawn eredl and with set features, which are so pale that the moonlight could not make them paler, the queen stares fixedly and yet eagerly into the distance, 25 E FREDERIC LEIGHTON as if she had the will to look over the very edge of the world for the light to come.” Another pidlure this year was the Moorish Garden — a dream of Granada^ a delightful little canvas, almost square. In the foreground is a young girl carrying copper vessels, and followed by two peacocks ; the background is obviously taken from the study of a garden at Generalife, reproduced elsewhere in this book ; the Antique Juggling Girl and Old Damascus : the Jews garter ^ were also in the Academy of 1874. To 1875 belongs the Eastern ^linger, a pifture which, as we shall see later, provoked severe censure from Mr. Ruskin. As exhibited it differed much from its present state. Not only was the sky of deeper violet, but almost in silhouette against the moon, on another raised platform, stood a draped female figure, afterwards painted out entirely. Other works shown this year were Little Fatimay a small half-length figure of a little girl in Eastern costume, seen against a dark background; and a Portion of the Interior of the Grand Mosque at Damascus. As the building it depibts has since been burnt down, the fine transcript has an added interest. We are come now to a year which, even beyond other years of aftivity, displayed the artist’s charafteristical energy : 1876. In the Academy of that year, with the Daphnephoria, Leighton once more chose a great classic theme, for a paint- ing which, by its composition, reminded the critics and lovers of art of the artist’s early triumph with the Cimabue’ s Madonna, and of his other great processional piN 111 TIIK MNK ART M il IK IV SISTI-.kS KISS I 1 I '•'I 3 YEAR BY YEAR— 1878 TO 1896 nymph, and by a piping man, all grouped beneath an arm of a beech tree, that extends overhead and shadows the upland ridge on which they have come to rest, while they gaze on a river winding among sunlit meads. The water reflects the blue and white of sky and clouds ; the land is dashed by shadows. The nymphs’ robes are red, blue, and pale yellow. We ought not to overlook another idyllic pidture in the same exhibition. Whispers^ an illustration of Horace’s well-known line, “ Lenesque sub nodtem susurri.” In this charming work, amid masses of crimson flowers and green leaves, two lovers are seen seated upon a marble bench, while he whispers tenderly in her ear, and she listens with dreamy eyes and maidenly mien. Bianca^ a fair-haired girl in a white dress, standing with folded arms, and Viola were also shown this year, which saw also the Portrait of Mrs. Augustus Ralli exhibited at the Royal Academy and that of Mrs. Algernon Sartoris at the Grosvenor Gallery. In the 1882 Academy appeared two of the most popular of Sir Frederic’s pidtures. Wedded and Day Dreams. In the latter, a fair Sybarite is pressing her cheek against her hands, as she stands near a tapestry, with eyes gazing far away, the images of love-dreams in them ; her purple mantle, embroidered with silver, produces a charming effedt of colour. Still more famous is Wedded., — “ one of the happiest of Sir Frederic’s designs,” said a critic at the time, “ and as a composition of lines, difficult, subtle, and original, may be called one of the most remarkable produdtions of this decade.” Other pidtures shown this year were Antigone and the much-debated Phryne at Eleusis — a notable study of the famous hetaira, who is seen standing, and holding out with one hand the mass of her deep auburn hair. Her skin is of a ruddy golden hue, as if seen under a glow of sunlight. Red tissue, which falls from her shoulders and extended arms, and an olive- coloured mantle that has fallen at the foot of the marble columns behind her, backed by a sky, very charadteristic of the painter, in which snowlike masses of cloud float in a southern azure, produce a total effedt of a certain super-womanly order of beauty. A Design Jor a portion of a Proposed Decoration in St. Paul’s, a pidlure entitled Melittion, and a Portrait of Mrs. Mocatta, were also hung at the Academy in 1882 ; Zeyra, a little Eastern child in plum colour headdress, a rich bit of colour elaborately painted, was shown at the Grosvenor Gallery. In 1883, Memories, though not one of the most typical of Leighton’s pidtures, decidedly pleased the general public. It 33 FREDERIC LEIGHTON shows the half-length figure of a blonde, in a black and gold dress. More interesting artistically was a decorative frieze, 'The Dance^ for a drawing-room, the design for which we repro- duce, and which may, in so far, answer for itself. Other pictures of 1883 are Kittens, a full-length figure of a fair-haired child in purple and embroidered drapery, seated on a bench covered with a leopard skin, holding a rose in hand and looking down at a kitten sitting beside her ; and the Vestal, a bust of a girl with her head and shoulders swathed with white gold-embroidered draperies. To this year also belongs a Portrait of Miss Nina Joachim, a child in a blue frock with crimson sash. The next year, 1884, brought Letty, that most delightful of English maidens, A Nap, Sun Gleams, and the imaginative and admirably romantic Cymon and Iphigenia. Letty was one of Leighton’s pictures which particularly excited Mr. Ruskin’s admiration. It shows a simply pretty child, with soft brown hair under a black hat, a saffron kerchief about her neck. The Letty and the Cymon and Iphigenia, with a few other notable pictures, did much to leave a pleasant recolledtion of the excep- tional Academy of 1884. “ A more original effedt of light and colour, used in the broad, true, and ideal treatment of lovely forms,” said a French critic, “ we do not remember to have seen at the Academy, than that produced by the Cymon and Iphigenia V Engravings and other reprodudions of the pidlure have made its design, at any rate, almost as familiar now as Boccaccio’s tale itself. There are some divergences, however, in the two versions, Boccaccio’s tale is a tale of spring ; Sir Frederic, the better to carry out his conception of the drowsy desuetude of sleep, — and of that sense of pleasant but absolute weariness which one associates with the season of hot days and short nights, has changed the spring into that riper summer-time which is on the verge of autumn ; and that hour of late sunset which is on the verge of night. Under its rich glow lies the sleeping Iphigenia, draped in folds upon folds of white, and her attendants; while Cymon, who is as unlike the boor of tradition as Spenser’s Colin Clout is unlike an ordinary Cumbrian herdsman, stands hard-by, wondering, pensively wrapt in so exquisite a vision. Altogether, a great presentment of an immortal idyll ; so treated, indeed, that it becomes much more than a mere reading of Boccaccio, and gives an ideal pidture of Sleep itself, — that Sleep which so many artists and poets have tried at one time or another to render. 34 YEAR BY YEAR-1878 TO 1896 In 1885, among the five contributions of the President to the Academy, appeared the vivacious portrait of Lord Rosebery’s little daughter, T’he Lady Sybil Primrose^ who appears in white with a blue sash, carrying a doll. A Portrait of Mrs. A. Hichens and Phoebe were the only other pictures this year. A frieze. Music (reproduced in this volume), was shown, and at the Grosvenor Gallery A Study of a fair-haired girl, in green velvet dress. 1886 was chiefly notable for the statue in bronze of the Sluggard., in which Leighton again furnished us with a plastic charadferization of Sleep, which he designed by way of contrast to his statue of the struggling Athlete. It was suggested, Mr. Spielmann says, by accidental circumstances. The model who had been sitting to him fell a-yawning in his interval of rest, and charmed the artist, not only with his exceptional beauty of line and play of muscle, but also with the artistic contrast of energy and languor. But that he might not lay himself open to the charge that the work was a glorification of indolence, the sculptor made concession to what after all was an artistic suggestion, and placed under the yawner’s foot “ The glorious wreath of laurel leaves Heel trodden and despised.” The graceful statuette of a little girl who is alarmed by a toad on the edge of a pool or stream of water, called Needless Alarms., appeared at the same time ; and was so much admired by the P.R.A.’s colleague. Sir John Everett Millais, that he wished to purchase it, whereupon Sir Frederic presented it to him, and received, in return, the charming pidture of Shelling Peas., which Sir John painted specially for this pleasant exchange. In 1886 also appeared the Decoration in Painting for a Music Room, destined for New York, which is here illustrated by the com- pleted work, and its preliminary studies from life for it. Gulnihal, a single figure, is the only other painting exhibited at the Academy in this year. In 1887 appeared a pidture which seems scarcely to have received its due appreciation, Phe fealousy of Simcetha the Sorceress. This is a seated figure in yellow and white drapery, with a purple mantle wrapped around her shoulders ; a well- wrought, finely-rendered work. Phe Last Watch of Hero, also first seen this year, is now in the Manchester Corporation Gallery. It is in two compartments ; in the upper, and larger. Hero, clad in pink drapery, is seen drawing aside a curtain and 35 FREDERIC LEIGHTON gazing out over the sea. Below, in the smaller panel, is the body of the dead Leander, on a rock washed by the waves. A quotation from Sir Edwin Arnold’s translation of Musaeus was appended to its title : “With aching heart she scanned the sea-face dim. ****** Lo ! at the turret’s foot his body lay. Rolled on the stones and washed with breaking spray.” A pidture of a little girl with yellow hair and pale blue eyes, entitled with a verse by Robert Browning : “ Y ellow and pale as ripened corn Which Autumn’s kiss frees, — grain from sheath, — Such was her hair, while her eyes beneath Showed Spring’s faint violets freshly born,” was in the same exhibition, and also a design for the reverse of the Jubilee medallion, executed for her Majesty’s Government. In 1888 appeared another large work, which, although not absolutely a procession, has much in common with the Cimabue, the Syracusan Bride ^ and T’he Daphnephoria. It was entitled Captive Andromache^ and accompanied by a fragment of the “ Iliad,” translated by E. B. Browning : . . . . “ Some standing by Marking thy tears fall, shall say, ‘ This is she, The wife of that same Heftor that fought best Of all the Trojans when all fought for Troy.’” This, and a Portrait of Amy ^ Lady Coleridge the artist’s only contributions to the Royal Academy of 1888. The Portraits of the Misses Stewart Hodgson is also of this year, which saw four landscape studies exhibited at the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, and five at the Royal Society of British Artists, Suffolk Street. The Sibyl, exhibited in 1889, is a full-length figure swathed in lilac drapery, seated with her legs crossed, on a chair, her chin supported by her left hand, and gazing out of the picture. Beside her are scrolls, and a sombre sky is behind the figure. Invocation, a girl in white robes with arms raised above her head, and a Portrait of Mrs. F. Lucas, were also shown ; but Greek Girls playing at Ball (here reproduced) is not only the most important, but a pidture that shows the mannerism of Lord Leighton’s treatment of drapery at its finest. Elsewhere the undulating snaky coils may be somewhat distressing, here 36 RV !■ I H K itv '1 \\| HK I KK I ^ \ I li'N I,AS I W A I ( II or II KKI ) I ■4 ■■a'lh. I. .« ■f it' J I 1 1 I t DKCORATIUX FOR TIIF CEILIXG OF A Z^IUSIC ROOM i 1 c . j#rl I -4'i SITDN’ ink TUI- ri-.IIJNc; nl- ,\ Ml'Sir knn.M /A 7 '■% t / f. >Tri)\' Foi: riir. i oi- a mtaic room I ta 1 -. >iri)\ ink ••Mi;si,IS A\l) A M M;n \l K I ).\ " 1 I - YEAR BY YEAR- 1878 TO 1896 they float in the air and help the suggestion of movement. The landscape at the back is also both typical and beautiful. An Rle 7 y was the fifth of the artist’s contributions to the Academy of fsSp. In 1890 The Bath of Psyche appeared at the Academy. This at once established its position as a popular favourite, and has probably been more widely reproduced than any other. It was purchased under the terms of the Chantrey Bequest, and is now at the Tate Gallery, Millbank. It was suggested, so Mr. M. H. Spielmann tells us, by the “ paper-knife ” pidture, as Lord Leighton called it, which he had painted for Mr. Alma-Tadema’s wall screen. Solitude was also shown this year, and the Tragic Poetess, a full-length figure, clad in blue and purple drapery, on a terrace, with the sea beyond. The fourth pidfure at the Academy was a very faithfully painted transcript of The Arab Hall, at No. 2, Holland Park Road. In 1891 appeared Perseus and Androfneda, a very original Version of a theme which it seems the destiny of every painter and sculptor of classical subjedts to attempt at some time. In this Andromeda is bound to a rock, the monster stands over her with outstretched wings, while from the clouds above, Perseus, on his winged steed, is discharging arrows. The clay models for Perseus are reproduced elsewhere. The Return of Persephone was another important work shown this year. It represents Perse- phone, supported by Hermes, being brought back to the upper world, where she is awaited with outstretched arms by Demeter. A Portrait of A. B. Mitford, Esq., and a marble version of the Athlete Struggling with a Python, were also shown in the same exhibition. In 1892 a version of a panel of the proposed decoration for the dome of St. Paul’s appeared with the title. And the Sea gave up the Dead which were in it ; this, purchased by Mr. Henry Tate, is now among the pidtures he gave to the Gallery at Millbank. The most important of Leighton’s later work. The Gardefi of the Hesperides, in many respedts the most sumptuous piece of decoration he ever achieved, was shown this year. It is a large circular pidlure, the centre occupied by a tree bearing golden apples; under its branches recline the three Hesperides, caressing the dragon who assists them to guard the treasure. A superbly brilliant sea is in the distance. The charm of this pidfure is mainly in its colour, but as an example of elaborately artificial composition it is hardly less noteworthy. Unfortunately, despite 37 FREDERIC LEIGHTON every eflfort of Lord Leighton, most kindly exerted on behalf of the editor of this volume, the owners of the copyright refused under any condition to allow it to be illustrated herein. A Bacchante, and At the Fountain, a girl in fawn-coloured and violet draperies, with a bunch of lemons overhanging the marble wall behind her, were shown this year ; and also a Clytie, which must not be confused with another known by the same title, the last pidlure on which the artist was at work before his death. The 1892 version, shown in the retrospective exhibition, is thus described in its catalogue : “ A small figure of Clyde is seen on the right, kneeling on a stone building with arms outstretched towards the sun, which is setting behind a range of moorland hills.” In 1893 Hit (here reproduced). The Frigidarium (also illus- trated), Farewell, Corinna of Tanagra, and Rizpah were exhibited at the Academy. Of these the most important is the last named. It illustrates the story of the two sons of Rizpah, by Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth, who were slain by the Gideonites. Rizpah, robed in dark blue, is seen in the aCt of fetching away their bodies, which are shrouded by dull lilac and blue draperies. Vultures circle above, and two leopards approach stealthily. Farewell is a single figure in olive green and plum-coloured peplis under a portico above the sea, where she pauses to take a last look at an outward-bound ship. Atalanta depiCls the bust only of a dark-haired girl in purple and white drapery, with a snake-like ornament twisted round her arm, which is bare to the shoulder. Corinna of Tanagra is a half-length figure crowned with leaves, in coloured drapery, resting her clasped hands upon her lyre. The Frigidarium is an upright figure in semi-transparent red drapery, which with the background of gold is reflected in the water beneath her feet. In 1894 were shown The Spirit of the Summit, a white-robed figure with upturned face, sitting on a snowy peak, with starlit sky beyond ; The Bracelet (here reproduced) ; Fatidica, a figure in green-white robes (also illustrated here); At the Window, a dark-haired boy in blue, looking over the ledge of a window ; and Summer Slumber. This last is a somewhat elaborate com- position ; a girl in salmon colour draperies is lying asleep on the broad rim of a marble fountain, masses of flowers are in the mid distance, and a vista of sunny landscape through the open window beyond. 3B r j 1U3 '■ Aii'l '111 ■ u|i I he ilr III w liirli u ! ri- in il . Rl ' . ■ • . I ^ . / /I'V* . m: I- ;>S ii HV I’KRMI-'InN iiK 'IF,SsR>. H. liRA’.'Fr- AM) fO. I KK.IDAUH M i’ I' •l. ■1 ( kl/1' All ■ • '.If > 1 ■ ^ i ■« 1 »■ TIIK liATII Oi- BY IKRMI'^^IoN iiK mi: BKRi.iN u'Mii ■'•fc! I 1 V‘ m ! ?4i- i*'- ■■f k ‘•■jiir, HATH ni- I’SNcm-; Slum i nK V 15V JKKMI'"'K>N (*\ MK^>R". I. .\(,\y.\\ A\I» TIM i;k.\( iM.r 3L „ lih^ Jl ’ I:V I'EKMI>^ION III MF.»R''. T. Ai,Ni:\V ANI> >0N lATIDlCA V YEAR BY YEAR-1878 TO 1896 In 1895, the last year of the artist’s working life, he sent six pictures to the Academy, and completed the wall decoration at the Royal Exchange (here illustrated), Fhoenicians Bartering with Britons. The paintings were entitled, Flaming 'June (a pidlure reproduced in colours for a Christmas number of the “ Graphic ”), in which the “ broad ” painting of the sea beyond was a notable exception to the artist’s usual handling ; Lachrymae, a standing figure in robes of black and blue green, resting her arm upon a Doric column ; '“Twixt Hope and Fear, a seated figure of a black- haired Greek girl, robed in white and olive, with a sheep-skin thrown around her ; The Maid with her Tellow Hair, a girlish figure in lemon-coloured drapery, reading from a red-backed book ; Listener, a child seated with crossed legs on a fur rug ; and a S>tudy of a Girl's Head, with auburn, wavy hair. In the 1896 Academy Clytie was the only pidture. In Lord Leighton’s studio in various stages of completion were a Bacchante, a half-length figure of a fair-haired girl crowned with leaves, and a leopard skin over her shoulder ; The Fair Persian, a bust of a girl with flowing dark hair, crowned by a jewelled circlet ; and The Vestal, a half-length figure of a girl in white drapery, these were all exhibited at the Winter Exhibition of 1897. To Clytie, his last pidture, a small monograph has been devoted by the Fine Art Society. In this we read : “ ‘Thank goodness my ailment has not interfered with my capacity for work, for I have never had a better appetite for it, nor I believe done better. I was idle for five months in the summer, but since my return I have been working hard and have produced the pidfures you see.’ Thus he spoke to the present writer [of the monograph in question] as he led the way across his studio. . . . Turning to the Clytie he continued : ‘ This I have been at work upon all the morning. Orchardson has been so good as to say I have never done anything finer than the sky. You know the story. I have shown the goddess in adoration before the setting sun, whose last rays are permeating her whole being. With upraised arms she is entreating her beloved one not to forsake her. A flood of golden light saturates the scene, and to carry out my intention, I have changed my model’s hair from black to auburn. To the right is a small altar, upon which is an offering of fruit, and upon a pillar beyond I shall show the feet of a statue of Apollo.’ “ But a few days after this occurrence the dead President lay in semi-state in his coffin, before the pidture. A drawing in the ‘Graphic’ (January 26th, 1896) shows the interior of the 39 FREDERIC LEIGHTON studio, with the figure of Clytie, in her attitude of despair, stretching her arms above the body of her creator.” Here the record, year by year, is closed. A few pidlures seem to have escaped the honours of exhibition. One,^ A Noble Lady of Venice, in possession of Lord Armstrong, does not appear to have been exhibited. It is probably the pidfure which was sold at Christie’s in 1875 for 950 guineas. A Lady with Pome- granates, which sold for 765 guineas at the sale of Baron Grant’s pidtures in 1877, does not appear in our list of exhibited works ; nor, it may be, are all the early pidlures included therein. But the official catalogues of the Royal Academy May Exhibitions, and of the special Winter Exhibition devoted to the artist’s works, have been freely drawn upon for description, and to the list of his life’s work, as it appeared in the first edition of this work, many additions have been made. * Engraved in the “ Magazine of Art,” March, 1896. 40 PERMISSION OP MESSRS. HENRY C,RA\ Es AM) ' o, A HACClIAXTi; I ^’5 r * ■