LORD LEIGHTON'S HOUSE IN 1900
In the preceding chapter a picture is drawn of the "House Beautiful," as
it was in Lord Leighton's lifetime. It was then full to overflowing with
all manner of treasures; but now all that were removable have been
dispersed. Only the shell, the house itself, remains. Yet denuded as it
is, that is still well worth looking at. The architectural features to
which Mr. Rhys, dazzled by other things, hardly did justice, are now all
the more apparent.
One of the rarest of all accomplishments, at any rate in England, is a
cultivated taste in architecture; but it so happened that amongst his
many acquirements Lord Leighton possessed it in a remarkable degree. In
fact he received, although a painter by profession, the gold medal of
the Royal Institute of British Architects in virtue of the intimate
knowledge of architecture he had displayed in some of his
backgrounds--for instance, those of the frescoes at South Kensington. It
is a great honour, and one by no means lightly bestowed. At any rate,
when there was a question of building himself a house, though he might
not have been able to build it himself, he was thoroughly qualified to
choose an architect. His choice fell upon Professor Aitchison, now R.A.,
and he probably hit upon the only man of his generation able to put his
feeling into bricks and mortar, viz., the feeling for a beauty sedate,
delicate, and dignified.
We must remember the condition of things architectural in the sixties to
do justice to the independence of employer and architect. It was a time
when the Albert Memorial was possible, and when men tried to guide their
steps by the light of "The Seven Lamps of Architecture." A sentimental
fancy for Gothic based on irrational grounds was all but universal, and
it needed courage to avow a preference for the classical. The compromise
in favour of quaintness and capricious prettiness which began under the
name of the "Queen Anne style," and has contributed so many picturesque
and pleasing buildings to our modern London, had not yet budded. Nor
would it ever at any time of his life have thoroughly responded to
Leighton's taste. So long as he could detect a defect he was
dissatisfied, and extreme nicety is not what the Dutch style pretends
to. It depends upon a picturesque combination of forms of no great
refinement in themselves, but which give a varied skyline and a pretty
play of light and shade. It amuses at the first glance, and as it rarely
demands a second, it is well suited to turbid atmospheres, which blur
outlines, and a chilly climate in which people cannot loiter out of
doors. Moreover, the old-world memories it evokes, although in a minor
degree than was the case with the Gothic, contribute to its facile
popularity. But the classical taste is a love for form and delicate
beauty of line _as such_, quite irrespective of any associations which
may accompany them, or lamps, be they seven or seventy times seven. And
to build his house in this style was the natural thing for a sculptor
and fastidious seeker after the ideal in form. He found the man he
wanted in Professor Aitchison.
We must go over the outside and inside of the house, but rapidly; for to
do more than just indicate the points worth attention would be waste of
effort. To convey an idea of the feelings produced by architecture is
perhaps possible, but it is perfectly vain to hope to picture it or
reproduce in words the actual beauties of proportion or of colour. Those
who wish to verify them must see for themselves and examine the building
carefully.
The aspect of the house as seen from the street is, it must be admitted,
hardly symmetrical; but it is evident also that the first design has
been much altered and added to. At one end the Arab Hall, with its dome
and "bearded" battlements, is an obvious afterthought, in great contrast
with the serious simplicity of the rest. And at the other end the glass
studio, which was added later still, is also clearly an excrescence. The
centre part was the original house, and the studio was the chief feature
of it, and very much as it is now. It is, of course, on the north side,
and the street, the south side, is occupied by small rooms which, with
their repeated small openings, offer no great scope for designing.
Still, the whole has that look of dignity which always accompanies high
finish; and the entrance, far from being commonplace, because it has
nothing quaint or surprising about it, has a certain ample serenity
which it is rare to find. The mouldings of stonework and woodwork, few
and simple as they are, are not taken out of a pattern-book, as is
usually the case, but are specially designed each for its own position.
All the refinement of a building consists in its mouldings, and no one
has designed mouldings better than Professor Aitchison. A vast
improvement has been made in this respect in the last twenty years or
so, and it is largely due to his influence. At any rate he was one of
the first and he remains the best of modern designers of mouldings.
There are some fine examples of his work in the house.
On the north the house looks into a fair-sized garden, skilfully
planted, so that it looks much larger than it is. In the mind of the
writer this aspect is intimately bound up with the recollection of
delightful Sunday mornings in summer, when he sat chatting on random
subjects with the President, who, in slippers, a so-called "land and
water hat," and a smock frock, leant back in a garden-chair and talked
as no one else could. The quiet, the sun overhead, the grass under our
feet, the green trees around us, and the house visible between them,
form an ineffaceable picture of æsthetic contentment it is a delight to
recall. It recurred every Sunday whenever the weather was fine and warm.
Then it was that there was leisure to appreciate the admirable symmetry
of the architecture; for in England it is so rare to sit out of doors
where one may look at architecture that even if architects were to
design exteriors with all the subtlety of a Brunelleschi or a Bramante,
they would seldom get anyone to notice their work.
The studio occupies the whole of the upper story, and the architect had
a good opportunity, as there was no need to cut it up as is the case
when several rooms have to be provided for, by numerous uniform lights.
Here, in the centre, is one great light between wide spaces of wall
judiciously divided by string courses, and in the upper part on either
side of the great window is a row of three small windows. At the east
end is a small door leading into a pretty little Venetian balcony with
stone parapet. The whole makes a very beautiful building, and the
details and proportions are all worth examining.
This central part was what one saw through the trees as one sat in the
garden. Less visible were the glass studio on its iron columns, an
excellent piece of work, considering its few possibilities, and the Arab
Hall at the other end. Of course the latter looks a little incongruous.
It is a professed reproduction of Arab architecture, but carried out,
like the rest of the house, with unstinted expense, care, and finish.
We will now go inside by the front door. The cornice of the ceiling of
the vestibule first entered is singularly fine. Like every other good
artist Professor Aitchison improved as he went on, and this is one of
his latest designs in mouldings. When the entrance was altered some
years before the President's death, an opportunity occurred for putting
in a new ceiling.
Passing on into the hall one comes upon a very picturesque arrangement
of staircase. It is lit from above by a broad skylight. The stairs begin
to rise against the wall of the dining-room which is recessed; while on
the first floor the wall of the studio is projected and carried on
columns, beyond which the stairs rise. So that figures coming through
the hall in the light, begin mounting the stairs in the shadow, and
re-emerge into the light, as the stairs turn, with a very varied and
striking effect. By the first short flight of steps, and between the two
columns, is a seat made of a Persian chest or cassone, beautiful and
unusual in shape, and richly inlaid. Lord Leighton bought it in Rhodes
or Lindos, and was very proud of it. It could not be removed and sold
with the rest of the treasures at Christie's as it was a "fixture." The
floor of the hall is of marble mosaic, mostly black and white. Only one
small piece by the dining-room door, a very agreeable design, is in
pinkish marbles.
[Illustration: THE HOUSE: THE ARAB HALL]
On the left, down a short passage, is the Arab Hall. It is so unlike
anything else in Europe that its reputation has withdrawn all
attention from the rest of the house. It certainly is a most sumptuous
piece of work. Elsewhere Leighton satisfied his love of chastened form;
in this room and its approach he gave full scope to his delight in rich
colours. The general scheme is a peacock blue, known technically as
Egyptian green, and gold, with plentiful black and white. Here and there
tiny spots of red occur, but they are rare. The harmony begins in the
staircase hall. The walls, except in the recessed part, where there are
genuine oriental tiles, are lined to the level of the first floor with
tiles of a fine blue, from the kilns of Mr. De Morgan, and the soffitt
of the stairs is coloured buff, with gold spots. In the passage the tone
increases in richness. The ceiling is silver and the cornice gold, while
the walls, except for a fine panel of oriental tiles over the
drawing-room door, are lined with the same tiles as the staircase. Then
between two grand columns of red Caserta marble, with gilt capitals
modelled by Randolph Caldecott, we pass into the Arab Hall itself, and
we come upon the full magnificence of the effect. It is made up of
polished marbles of many colours, gilt and sculptured capitals,
alabaster, shining tiles, glistening mosaic of gold and colours, brass
and copper in the hanging corona, and coloured glass in the little
pierced windows, in fact, of every form of enrichment yet devised by
Eastern or Western Art. From the floor, which is black and white, the
tone rises through blue to lose itself in the gloom of a golden dome,
sparsely lit by jewel-like coloured lights.
In the centre a jet of water springs up, to fall back into a basin of
black marble. The form of the basin which deepens towards the centre in
successive steps, is an adaptation of the pattern of a well-known
oriental fountain. All is equally black in this pool, and the border
unfortunately is barely distinguishable from the water. After a dinner
party at which Sir E. Burne-Jones, Mr. Whistler, Mr. Albert Moore, and
many others were present, I recollect how, when we were smoking and
drinking coffee in this hall, somebody, excitedly discoursing, stepped
unaware right into the fountain. Two large Japanese gold tench, whose
somnolent existence was now for the first time made interesting, dashed
about looking for an exit, and there was a general noise of splashing
and laughter. The dark, apparently fathomless pool was rather a mistake.
Mishaps like that just mentioned occurred, I believe, more than once.
There had been at first a white marble basin, but it did not give
satisfaction, because, being in several pieces, it leaked, whereas the
black one is all cut out of one block, at great expense, of course. But
the white had the advantage of lightness where light is none too
plentiful. In our winter, when days are dark and cold, black pools, with
marble columns and floors, tiled walls, and dim domes about them do not
fall in with English notions of cosy woollen comfort. The season to do
justice to this hall is when summer comes round. When the sun breaks
through the lattice work of the musharabiyehs, and the light is thrown
up on the storied tiles, and up the polished columns to the glinting
mosaic, to die away in the golden cupola, the effect is indeed superb,
and to sit on the divan, by the splash of the fountain, and look from
the glories within to the green trees without, is to live not in London
but in the veritable Arabian nights.
The hall is square. On one side is the entrance. In the centre of each
of the other sides is a lofty arched recess. Those to the north and
south are windows, shuttered with genuine musharabiyehs bought in Cairo
and having deep cushioned divans. The recess to the west has only a
small pierced window high up. It has a raised step, and in it used to
stand certain bronze reproductions from Pompeii, with pots, vases, etc.,
now gone. Some of the tiles were bought in Damascus in 1873. The price
paid was £200 for the complete tile surface of one room. What would they
be worth now? Others, particularly the great inscription spoken of
below, were bought later in Cairo, and the rest at odd times. Here and
there are single tiles, but most of them are in sets forming fine
panels. An interesting one, in the south-east corner, represents hawks
clutching their prey, cheetahs and deer, a hunter, etc., and another has
herons, fish, tortoises, deer, etc. Set into the woodwork in the western
recess are four tiles with female figures. These are either Persian or
come from the neighbourhood of Persia, for the Anatolian or Egyptian
Mahommedan tolerated no representations of life. The rest repeat in
pleasing variety the usual motives of oriental design, viz., vines,
cypresses, pinks and vases, doorways (? the entrances of mosques), with
hanging lamps, and conventional floral designs. Above the entrance runs
the chief treasure, the grand series of tiles bearing the great
inscription. It is about sixteen feet long. According to Mr. Harding
Smith it may be translated thus:
"In the name of the merciful and long-suffering God. The Merciful hath
taught the Koran. He hath created man and taught him speech. He hath set
the sun and moon in a certain course. Both the trees and the grass are
in subjection to him."
It cannot be said that there is anything very new in that. There rarely
is in such inscriptions. There are three others, but so far as they have
been deciphered they appear to be incomplete, and in two cases, at any
rate, to much the same effect as the big one. Just pious reminders. The
real interest of them lies in the decorative effect of the imposing
procession of letters across the wall, and the splendour of their
colours. For beauty and condition this great inscription is said to be
without a rival in any collection in Europe.
Let into the woodwork panelling in the west bay there are two small
lustred Persian tiles of the thirteenth century. They have been
mutilated as to the faces of the figures by true believers. The rest
belong to the sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries, a time when
artistic production was stimulated by the commercial wealth brought by
the trade of Venice and Genoa with the East through Anatolia, Damascus
and Cairo.
Round three sides above the tiles runs a decorative mosaic frieze, by
Walter Crane, of an arabesque design on a gold ground. It is a beautiful
and fanciful piece of work in itself, and it serves moreover to blend
the prevailing colour of the tiles with the gilding of the upper
regions. But it does not continue round the fourth side, because over
the entrance, above the great inscription, an oriel window of
musharabiyeh work looks down into the hall from the first floor of the
house.
The pierced windows, or at least eight of them, were brought from Cairo,
and when bought had the original glass in them; but in the east the
glass is stuck in with white of egg, and as they were, as usual,
ill-packed, the glass all came out and was ground to fragments in the
jolting of the journey. Only enough could be saved to fill the window in
the upper part of the west recess opposite the entrance. The remainder
had to be filled with English imitations.
Returning now to the staircase, we find it ends on the first floor in a
landing leading to the great studio. On the left it is open to the
little studio; so-called because, having a skylight, Lord Leighton used
it for painting out-of-door effects until he had the glass studio built.
Adjoining it, or forming an extension of it, is another room, built only
a year or two before the late owner's death. After the addition of the
glass studio the two were only used as an antechamber, and were hung
with the pictures presented by brother artists, and with a few old
masters. The mouldings round the skylights are very pretty. The latticed
window before mentioned looks down from the little studio into the Arab
Hall.
The great studio is a large room about sixty feet by twenty-five and
about seventeen in height. In the centre of the north side is the lofty
window forming a bay and extending into a skylight in the top. High up
on either side of it are the three small openings mentioned when
speaking of the exterior. A curtain hangs in front of them, and in point
of fact they were never used. In the west wall is an apse with a gilt
semi-dome, which appears in some of Lord Leighton's pictures. Across the
east end runs a gallery at about eight feet from the floor with
bookshelves under it on either side, and in the middle a broad passage
leads into the glass studio, and still outside this is a wide balcony
looking into the garden. Casts of a portion of the Panathenaic frieze of
the Parthenon run along the upper part of the wall of the great studio, fit
emblem of the lifelong devotion of the President to classic art. Such
then is the workshop. Even now, comparatively bare as it is at the
present moment of writing, this is one of the most picturesque suites of
rooms in existence; but to see it on one of the grand occasions of
Leighton's musical receptions was a very different sight and one not
easily to be forgotten. Then when walls and easels were covered with
pictures, when rare carpets hung from the gallery, flowers and palms
filled the bay window, beautiful women and men of every form of
distinction crowded the floor to listen to Joachim and Piatti, nothing
was wanting which could give beauty or interest to the spectacle.
It will be seen that the house is still rich in artistic beauty and
still has objects of value. But the most precious of its contents are
after all its associations. Its floors have been trodden by all that was
most notable in the society of its owner's day, people whose names alone
would be an epitome of our times. It was also the workshop of a great
artist. But, above all, it was the centre of a great influence which
profoundly modified English art.
Whatever judgment the future may pass upon his own productions, the fact
must never be lost sight of that even without them Leighton was a great
man. Intellectually, spiritually, and socially he was the most brilliant
leader and stimulator of artists we have ever seen in England. His
earnest example and lifelong persistence fanned the flame of enthusiasm
among all branches of art workers. He taught Englishmen to study form,
and it was under his encouragement that sculpture, which was fallen so
low, has now risen into so good a place. Finally he did more than anyone
else has done to raise the status of the artist in society.
The house which he built himself was his hobby, and in the refinement
and catholicity of taste it shows, there is so just a reflex of his
characteristics that an account of it is indispensable to any book which
claims to describe the man.
S. PEPYS COCKERELL.