HIS METHOD OF PAINTING
For particulars of the wonderfully thorough "method," which Leighton
used in preparing his pictures, we cannot do better than quote the
following admirable account by Mr. M. H. Spielmann (published during the
painter's life), which he has allowed us to reprint here.[9]
"I have said that the sense of line in composition, in figure and
drapery, is one of the chief qualities of the artist; and the conviction
that the method in which he places them upon canvas with such unerring
success--for it may be said that the President rarely, if ever, produces
an ugly form in a picture--would be both interesting and instructive,
prompted me to learn in what manner his effects are produced. This I
have done, having special regard to one of his Academy pictures, _The
Sibyl_, which, being a single figure, simplifies greatly the explanation
of the mode of procedure. This explanation holds good in every case, be
the composition great or small, elaborate or simple; the _modus
operandi_ is always the same.
[Illustration: A BACCHANTE (1896)
_By permission of Messrs. Henry Graves and Co._]
[Illustration: "HIT" (1893)
_By permission of "The Art Journal"_]
"Having by good fortune observed in a model an extraordinarily fine and
'Michelangelesque' formation of the hand and wrist--an articulation as
rare to find as it is anatomically beautiful and desirable--he bethought
him of a subject that would enable him to introduce his
_trouvaille_. As but one attitude could display the special
formation to advantage, the idea of a Sibyl, sitting brooding beside her
oracular tripod, was soon evolved, but not so soon was its form
determined and fixed. Like Mr. Watts, Sir Frederic Leighton thinks out
the whole picture before he puts brush to canvas, or chalk to paper;
but, unlike Mr. Watts, once he is decided upon his scheme of colour, the
arrangement of line, the disposition of the folds, down to the minutest
details, he seldom, if ever, alters a single line. And the reason is
evident. In Sir Frederic's pictures--which are, above all, decorations
in the real sense of the word--the design is a pattern in which every
line has its place and its proper relation to other lines, so that the
disturbing of one of them, outside of certain limits, would throw the
whole out of gear. Having thus determined his picture in his mind's eye,
he in the majority of cases makes a sketch in black and white chalk upon
brown paper to fix it. In the first sketch, the care with which the
folds have been broadly arranged will be evident, and, if it be compared
with the finished picture, the very slight degree in which the general
scheme has been departed from will convince the reader of the almost
scientific precision of the artist's line of action. But there is a good
reason for this determining of the draperies before the model is called
in; and it is this. The nude model, no matter how practised he or she
may be, never moves or stands or sits, in these degenerate days, with
exactly the same freedom as when draped; action or pose is always
different--not so much from a sense of mental constraint as from the
unusual liberty experienced by the limbs, to which the muscular action
invariably responds when the body is released from the discipline and
confinement of clothing.
"The picture having been thus determined, the model is called in, and is
posed as nearly as possible in the attitude desired. As nearly as
possible I say, for, as no two faces are exactly alike, no two models
ever entirely resemble one another in body or muscular action, and
cannot, therefore, pose in such a manner as exactly to correspond with
either another model or another figure--no matter how correctly the
latter may be drawn. From the model the artist makes the careful
outline, in brown paper, a true transcript from life, which may entail
some slight corrections of the original design in the direction of
modifying the attitude and general appearance of the figure. This would
be rendered necessary, probably by the bulk and material of the drapery.
So far, of course, the artist's attention is engaged exclusively by
'form,' 'colour' being always treated more or less ideally. The figure
is now placed in its surroundings, and established in exact relation to
the canvas. The result is the first true sketch of the entire design,
figure and background, and is built up of the two previous ones. It must
be absolutely accurate in the distribution of spaces, for it has
subsequently to be 'squared off' on to the canvas, which is ordered to
the exact scale of the sketch. At this moment, the design being finally
determined, the sketch in oil colours is made. It has been deferred till
now, because the placing of the colours is, of course, of as much
importance as the harmony. This done, the canvas is for the first time
produced, and thereon is enlarged the design, the painter re-drawing the
outline--never departing a hair's breadth from the outlines and forms
already obtained--and then highly finishing the whole figure in warm
monochrome from the life. Every muscle, every joint, every crease is
there, although all this careful painting is shortly to be hidden with
the draperies; such, however, is the only method of insuring absolute
correctness of drawing. The fourth stage completed, the artist
returns once more to his brown paper, re-copies the outline accurately
from the picture, on a larger scale than before, and resumes his studies
of draperies in greater detail and with still greater precision, dealing
with them in sections, as parts of a homogeneous whole. The draperies
are now laid with infinite care on to the living model, and are made to
approximate as closely as possible to the arrangement given in the first
sketch, which, as it was not haphazard, but most carefully worked out,
must of necessity be adhered to. They have often to be drawn piecemeal,
as a model cannot by any means always retain the attitude sufficiently
long for the design to be wholly carried out at one cast. This
arrangement is effected with special reference to painting--that is to
say, giving not only form and light and shade, but also the relation and
'values' of tones. The draperies are drawn over, and are made to conform
exactly to the forms copied from the nudes of the underpainted picture.
This is a cardinal point, because in carrying out the picture the folds
are found fitting mathematically on to the nude, or nudes, first
established on the canvas. The next step then is to transfer these
draperies to the canvas on which the design has been squared off, and
this is done with flowing colour in the same monochrome as before over
the nudes, to which they are intelligently applied, and which nudes must
never--mentally at least--be lost sight of. The canvas has been prepared
with a grey tone, lighter or darker, according to the subject in hand,
and the effect to be produced. The background and accessories being now
added, the whole picture presents a more or less completed
aspect--resembling that, say, of a print of any warm tone. In the case
of draperies of very vigorous tone, a rich flat local colour is probably
rubbed over them, the modelling underneath being, though thin, so sharp
and definite as to assert itself through this wash. Certain portions of
the picture might probably be prepared with a wash or flat tinting of a
colour the _opposite_ of that which it is eventually to receive. A blue
sky, for instance, would possibly have a soft, ruddy tone spread over
the canvas--the sky, which is a very definite and important part of the
President's compositions, being as completely drawn in monochrome as any
other portion of the design; or for rich blue mountains a strong orange
wash or tint might be used as a bed. The structure of the picture being
thus absolutely complete, and the effect distinctly determined by a
sketch which it is the painter's aim to equal in the big work, he has
nothing to think of but colour, and with that he now proceeds
deliberately, but rapidly.
[Illustration: NUDE STUDY FOR "CAPTIVE ANDROMACHE"]
[Illustration: STUDY FOR A FIGURE IN "CAPTIVE ANDROMACHE"]
[Illustration: STUDY FOR "ANDROMACHE"]
"Such is the method by which Sir Frederic Leighton finds it convenient
to build up his pictures. The labour entailed by such a system as this
is, of course, enormous, more especially when the composition to be
worked out is of so complex a character as the _Captive Andromache_ of
last year, every figure and group of which were treated with the same
completeness and detail as we have seen to attend the production of so
simple a picture as _The Sibyl_. Deliberateness of workmanship and
calculation of effect, into which inspiration of the moment is never
allowed to enter, are the chief characteristics of the painter's
craftsmanship. The inspiration stage was practically passed when he took
the crayon in his hand; and to this circumstance probably is to be
assigned the absence of realism which arrests the attention of the
beholder."
Mr. Spielmann has instanced, in the above account, the tragic and lovely
_Captive Andromache_, exhibited in 1888; and we may further add
that exquisite painting of _Greek Girls playing at Ball_, of 1889; or
the still more exquisite _Bath of Psyche_, of the year following. All
three are full of technical delicacy and finesse. For other qualities
take that radiantly pictured myth, the _Perseus and Andromeda_, or the
_Return of Persephone_ (both of 1891); or the lovely _Clytie_ of 1892,
whose sunset background was painted at Malinmore, on the west coast of
Donegal; or the _Atalanta_ or the _Rizpah_ of 1893.
[Illustration: STUDY FOR "PERSEUS AND ANDROMEDA"]
[Illustration: STUDY FOR "THE BATH OF PSYCHE"]
[Illustration: STUDY FOR "SOLITUDE"]
The memorable picture, first named of these, which shows Andromache at
the Well, is in particular a most characteristic example of the artist's
larger style. In it, true to his classic predilections, he gives a new
setting to the touching old story of Andromache's captivity. Following
up the earlier scene in the "Iliad," where Andromache begs her husband
Hector not to sally forth to battle, but to stay and defend the city,
and where, finding her prayers in vain, and weeping, she bids Hector
farewell, the picture shows the fulfilment of Andromache's fears and the
dire prophecy which Hector had recalled to his wife.
By way of contrast to this sombre canvas, take the glowing and brilliant
colours of the _Perseus and Andromeda_, one of the three pictures shown
at the Academy in 1891. The painting of the surroundings of Andromeda,
the deep blue water in the sea lagoon beneath, and these radiant
elemental people of air and light, provides such a glow of colour, as
haunts the eye for long after one has gazed one's fill upon it.
Something of the same feeling for the spirit that is in the forces of
the earth, lurks behind many of Leighton's representments of the classic
myths. It is certainly to be found, with a difference, in the _Return of
Persephone_, exhibited with the _Perseus_, which becomes in the
artist's hands a profound allegory of the return of Spring, with all
kind of symbolical meanings in the three figures of Proserpine, Ceres,
and Hermes, that are seen meeting before the mouth of Hades. _The Spirit
of the Summit_, one of the latest of these embodiments of the relation
of Man to Nature, may be read to mean Man's finer spirit of aspiration,
and the mountainous imagination of Art itself. It is characteristic of
the artist that, in the later years of his career, at a time when most
artists and men are apt to give up something of their earlier pursuit of
ideals, he retained undiminished a feeling for the unaccomplished
heights of the imagination. _The Spirit of the Summit_ may serve, then,
as the symbol, not so much of things attained, and Art victorious, as of
things that are always to be attained, and of Art striving and
undeterred. In this way it may serve, too, as in some sort the emblem of
Leighton's own ideals, and of his whole career. His artistic temper was
throughout, one of endless energy, endless determination; with a dash of
that finer dissatisfaction which is always seeking out new embodiments,
under all difficulties, of Man's pursuit, in a difficult, and often an
unbeautiful world, of Truth and Beauty. Above all, he was a consummate
draughtsman, and as Francisco Pacheco, the father-in-law of Velasquez,
wrote in his "Arte de la Pintura" (1649): "Drawing is the life and soul
of painting; drawing, especially outline, is the hardest; nay, the Art
has, strictly speaking, no other difficulty. Without drawing painting is
nothing but a vulgar craft; those who neglect it are bastards of the
Art, mere daubers and blotchers."
[Illustration: STUDY FOR "THE RETURN OF PERSEPHONE"]
[Illustration: STUDY FOR "PERSEPHONE"]