YEAR BY YEAR--1870 TO 1878
Sundry journeys into the East during this period of Leighton's career,
gave him new subject-matter, new tints to his palette, and added
something of an oriental fantasy to the classic sentiment of his art.
The sketches of Damascus and other time-honoured eastern cities,
mosques, gardens, and courtyards, which figured largely among Sir
Frederic's studies, were made for the most part in the autumn of 1873.
Previously, as early as 1867, the East had cast its spell upon him. In
1868, he went into Egypt, and made a voyage up the Nile with M. de
Lesseps, then at the flood of good-fortune. The Khedive himself provided
the steamer for this adventure. "It was during this voyage," we are
told, "that Sir Frederic came across a small child with the strangest
and most limited idea of full dress that probably ever occurred to
mortal--a tiny coin strung on to one of her strong coarse hairs." Of the
studies made during the journey, one is a woman's head, draped so as to
have a singularly archaic and Sphinx-like effect. Another is the fine
profile of a young peasant; and yet another, the head of an old man,
simple-minded and philosophical.
[Illustration: GARDEN AT GENERALIFE, GRANADA]
[Illustration: MIMBAR OF THE GREAT MOSQUE AT DAMASCUS
(Since destroyed by fire)]
In 1869 the _Helios and Rhodos_, already mentioned, served as the first
sign to the public of the new R.A.'s interest in things oriental. To the
1870 exhibition, his only contribution was the picture, _A Nile Woman_,
which is now owned by the Princess of Wales. It is a small
full-length figure of a girl, balancing an empty pitcher upon her head,
at the time of moonrise. Anticipating the Eastern subjects which future
years produced, we may note a picture of _Old Damascus_, showing the
Jews' quarter in that fabled city, in all its motley picturesqueness,
and the delightful _Moorish Garden,--A Dream of Granada_, which were
exhibited in 1874. A powerful picture, shown in 1875, of the _Egyptian
Slinger_,[4] is illustrated later in this volume, but no reproduction
can quite suggest the striking colouring of the original, and the
masterly treatment of its light and shade, in the presentment of this
lonely figure posed high on its platform against the clear evening sky.
The delightful _Little Fatima_, and the _Grand Mosque, Damascus_,
enlarged from the sketch previously alluded to, were also exhibited in
1875.
But perhaps the most picturesque memorial of the East due to the
artist's wanderings of these years, is an architectural, and not a
pictorial one. The fame of the Arab Hall in Lord Leighton's house has
reached even further than that of _Little Fatima_, or his painting of
the _Grand Mosque at Damascus_. Built originally to provide a setting
for some exquisite blue tiles, brought by the owner from Damascus
itself, it remains the most perfect representation of an oriental
interior to be found in London; but this again belongs to a later
period, and we must return to the date whence this chronicle was
interrupted. Before doing so, however, it may be noted that in 1870
began the famous Winter Exhibitions of Old Masters and Deceased British
Artists, of which Leighton was one of the most active supporters.
In the May exhibition of the Royal Academy, 1871, was hung a notable
canvas, _Greek Girls picking up Pebbles by the Sea_, described at the
time as "a delightful composition, comprising figures of almost
exhaustless grace, and wealth of beauty in design and colour."
Another painting, also shown there, _Cleoboulos instructing his daughter
Cleobouline_, is a charming example of its kind. The philosopher, with a
scroll on his lap, sits on a cushioned bench with his young daughter by
his side, his earnest action in delightful contrast with her girlish
grace.
But his great work in 1871 was _Hercules wrestling with Death for the
body of Alcestis_. The scene of this profound tragedy is on the
sea-shore, where the body of Alcestis, robed in white, lies under the
branches of trees in the centre of the picture. On the left is a group
of mourners, a seated girl and a woman prostrate in grief. On the right
are the two struggling figures; Hercules' superb form and tossing
lion-skin contrasting finely, both in action and colouring, with the
tall and coldly grey-robed spectre of Death, who presses forward to the
bed where Alcestis lies, whence he is thrust back by the mighty
Hercules. The exquisite figure of Alcestis with her statuesquely draped
robes and their pure and delicate colouring, forms a wonderful contrast
to the two strenuous figures on the right, while the figures of the
mourners on the left are delightfully posed and full of grace.
In July of this year, it is interesting to remember, appeared Browning's
"Balaustion's Adventure," which contained the following tribute to the
above picture and its painter:
"I know, too, a great Kaunian painter, strong
As Herakles, though rosy with a robe
Of grace that softens down the sinewy strength:
And he has made a picture of it all.
There lies Alkestis dead, beneath the sun,
She longed to look her last upon, beside
The sea, which somehow tempts the life in us
To come trip over its white waste of waves,
And try escape from earth, and fleet as free.
Behind the body I suppose there bends
Old Pheres in his hoary impotence;
And women-wailers, in a corner crouch
--Four, beautiful as you four,--yes, indeed!
Close, each to other, agonizing all,
As fastened, in fear's rhythmic sympathy,
To two contending opposite. There strains
The might o' the hero 'gainst his more than match,
--Death, dreadful not in thew and bone, but like
The envenomed substance that exudes some dew,
Whereby the merely honest flesh and blood
Will fester up and run to ruin straight,
Ere they can close with, clasp and overcome,
The poisonous impalpability
That simulates a form beneath the flow
Of those grey garments; I pronounce that piece
Worthy to set up in our Poikilé!"
[Illustration: HERCULES WRESTLING WITH DEATH FOR THE BODY OF ALCESTIS
(1871)]
[Illustration: SUMMER MOON (1872)
_By permission of Messrs. P. and D. Colnaghi and Co._]
To 1872 belongs the _Summer Moon_, one of the loveliest things ever
shown at the Academy, a picture full of that rarer feeling for light and
colour, which the artist achieved again and again in his treatment of
sunset, twilight, and night effects. _After Vespers_, exhibited the same
year, is a three-quarter length figure of a girl in a green robe
standing in front of a bench, holding in her right hand a string of
beads. This year's Academy held also _A Condottiere_, the noble figure
of a man in armour, now in the Birmingham Municipal Gallery, and a
portrait of the _Right Hon. Edward Ryan_. Hardly less memorable was
_Moretta_, exhibited in the Academy of 1873, in the words of a critic of
the day, "one of the most subtle and fortunate productions of the
painter." _Moretta_ is 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 effect;
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 (pp. 63, 64).
In the Academy of 1874 appeared four pictures, the most important being
the heroic painting,--_Clytemnestra from the Battlements of Argos
watches for the Beacon-fires which are to announce the Return of
Agamemnon_. In this picture, the figure of Clytemnestra is seen standing
erect, with hands folded, supporting 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 "Athenæum:"
"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 erect
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, as if she had the will to look over the very edge of the world
for the light to come."
[Illustration: THE JUGGLING GIRL (1874)]
[Illustration: A CONDOTTIERE (1872)
_By permission of the Corporation of Birmingham_]
Another picture 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 at p. 28); the _Antique Juggling Girl_ and _Old Damascus:
the Jews' Quarter_, were also in the Academy of 1874.
To 1875 belongs the _Egyptian Slinger_, a picture 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 Fatima_, 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_ (reproduced at
p. 28). As the building it depicts 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 activity, displayed the artist's characteristic
energy: 1876. In the Academy of that year, with the _Daphnephoria_,
Leighton once more chose a great classic theme, for a painting 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 picture, the _Syracusan Bride_.
Of all his works in this class, there is no doubt that the
_Daphnephoria_ is the most technically complete. The procession is seen
defiling along a terrace backed by trees through which the clear
southern sky gleams. A youth carrying the symbolic olive bough, called
the Kopo, adorned with its curious emblems, leads the procession. He is
clad in purple robes and crowned with leaves. The youthful priest, known
as the Daphnephoros (the laurel-bearer) follows, clothed in white
raiment. He is similarly crowned, and carries a slim laurel stem. Then
come three boys, in scanty red and green draperies, which serve only to
emphasize the beauty of their almost naked forms, the middle and tallest
one bearing aloft a draped trophy of golden armour. These are seen to be
pausing while the leader of the chorus, a tall, finely modelled man,
whose back is turned, is giving directions to the chorus with uplifted
right hand; in his left hand is a lyre, and the left arm from the elbow
is characteristically draped. The first row of the chorus is composed of
five children, clothed in purple, crowned with flowers; two rows of
maidens, in blue and white, come next; and these in turn are succeeded
by some boys with cymbals. The interest of the passing procession is
very much enhanced by the effect produced on two lovely bystanders,--a
girl and child in blue, beautifully designed, who are drawing water in
the left foreground. In the valley below is seen the town of Thebes.
[Illustration: THE DAPHNEPHORIA (1876)
_By permission of The Fine Art Society._]
[Illustration: STUDY FOR "THE DAPHNEPHORIA"]
With the painter's reading of the _Daphnephoria_ it may be
interesting to compare another account of this splendid religious
function. At this festival in honour of Apollo, celebrated every ninth
year by the Boeotians, it was usual, says pleasant Lempriere, "to
adorn an olive bough with garlands of laurel and other flowers, and
place on the top a brazen globe, from which were suspended smaller ones.
In the middle was placed a number of crowns, and a globe of inferior
size, and the bottom was adorned with a saffron-coloured garment. The
globe on the top represented the Sun, or Apollo; that in the middle was
an emblem of the moon, and the others of the stars. The crowns, which
were 365 in number, represented the sun's annual revolution. This bough
was carried in solemn procession by a beautiful youth of an illustrious
family, whose parents were both living. He was dressed in rich garments
which reached to the ground, his hair hung loose and dishevelled, his
head was covered with a golden crown, and he wore on his feet shoes
called _Iphricatidæ_, from Iphricates, an Athenian who first invented
them. He was called Daphnêphoros, 'laurel-bearer,' and at that
time he executed the office of priest of Apollo. He was preceded by one
of his nearest relations, bearing a rod adorned with garlands, and
behind him followed a train of virgins with branches in their hands. In
this order the procession advanced as far as the temple of Apollo,
surnamed Ismenius, where supplicatory hymns were sung to the god."[5]
In the 1876 Academy hung also the striking portrait, _Captain Richard
Burton, H.M.'s Consul at Trieste_; and two very characteristic single
figures, _Teresina_ and _Paolo_. The portrait of Captain Burton has been
fairly described as masterly. "There is no attempt," said one critic,
"at posing or picturesqueness in the portrait. It is the head of a man
who is lean and rugged and brown, but the face is full of character, and
every line tells. It is painted in the same strong and bold, and yet
careful, way that distinguishes the head of Signor Costa, painted three
years later."
The next year saw Leighton's first appearance as a sculptor. It was at
the Academy of 1877 that he exhibited the well-known, vigorously
designed and wrought _Athlete Struggling with a Python_.[6] This
adventure of the R.A. into a new field proved so successful, that the
_Athlete_ took rank as the most striking piece of sculpture of that
year. "In this work," said a friendly critic, "Mr. Leighton has
attempted to succeed in a truly antique way. We are bound to admit that
he has done wisely, bravely, and successfully." The statue was bought,
we may add, for £2,000, as the first purchase made by the trustees of
the Chantrey Fund, and is now in the Tate Gallery at Millbank. It was
afterwards repeated in marble, by the artist's own hand, for the Danish
Museum at Copenhagen.
Still more popular was his _Music Lesson_, another work in the same
exhibition. To realize the full charm of this picture, one must see the
original; for much depends upon the beauty of its colouring. Imagine a
classical marble hall, marble floor, marble walls, in black and white,
and red--deep red--marble pillars; and sitting there, sumptuously
attired, but bare-footed, two fair-haired girls, who serve for pupil and
music-mistress. The elder is showing the younger how to finger a lyre,
of exquisite design and finish; and the expression on their faces is
charmingly true, while the colours that they contribute to the
composition,--the pale blue of the child's dress, the pale flesh tints,
the pale yellow hair, and the white and gold of the elder girl's loose
robe, and the rich auburn of her hair,--are most harmonious. A bit of
scarlet pomegranate blossom, lying on the marble ground, gives the last
high note of colour to the picture. Two other pictures of 1877 must not
be omitted. _Study_ shows us a little girl (the present Lady Orkney), in
Eastern garb, diligently reading a sheet of music which lies before her
on a little desk. There is great charm in the simple grace of the
picture and in the softly brilliant colouring of the child's costume.
Very delightful, too, is the portrait of _Miss Mabel Mills_ (now the
Hon. Mrs. Grenfell), habited in black velvet, and a large dark hat with
coloured feathers, set against a grey background, a picture here
reproduced. _A Study_, _An Italian Girl_, and a _Portrait of H. E.
Gordon_, were all three shown at the Grosvenor Gallery the same year.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE HON. MABEL MILLS (1877)]
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF CAPTAIN RICHARD BURTON (1876)]
Another picture, in which a simple theme is treated in a classic
fashion--not dissimilar to that employed for the _Music Lesson_--is
_Winding the Skein_, a lovely painting exhibited at the Academy in 1878.
In this we see two Greek maidens as naturally employed as we often see
English girls in other surroundings. This idealization of a familiar
occupation--so that it is lifted out of a local and casual sphere, into
the permanent sphere of classic art, is characteristic of the whole of
Leighton's work. He, like Sir L. Alma-Tadema and Albert Moore, contrived
also to preserve a certain modern contemporary feeling in the classic
presentment of his themes. He was never archaic; so that the classic
scenarium of his subjects, in his hands, appears as little antiquarian
as a mediæval environment, shall we say, in the hands of Browning.
_Nausicaa_, a full-length girlish figure, in green and white draperies,
standing in a doorway, and _Serafina_, another single figure, and _A
Study_, were also shown the same year. At the Grosvenor Gallery were a
_Portrait of Miss Ruth Stewart Hodgson_, a demure little damsel in
outdoor attire, and a _Study of a Girl's Head_, full face.
[Illustration: NAUSICAA (1878)]
[Illustration: STUDY FOR "ELIJAH AND THE ANGEL"]