(At the National Portrait Gallery, London)
It would be no exaggeration to describe this painting of the famous
explorer as one of the more notable of modern portraits, so strong is
it in characterisation and so masterly in manner. The artist was
fortunate in having a sitter with such a striking personality, and the
sitter in being painted by a man of Leighton's deep insight and great
executive power.
[Illustration: PLATE VIII.--PORTRAIT OF SIR RICHARD BURTON]
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His choice of subjects, too, was made with little consideration for the
prejudices or the wishes of the public. It was nothing to him that by
a course of graceful sentimentality and pretty incident he could bring
himself into a secure haven of popularity. All he cared for was that
he should have scope to exercise his powers of invention, and to
develop those subtleties of decoration which were, as he held, of such
engrossing interest. Whether he decided upon heroic motives like the
"Hercules Wrestling with Death" or "Perseus and Andromeda," upon dainty
fancies like "Cleoboulos Instructing his Daughter Cleobouline," "Greek
Girls Playing at Ball," or "Winding the Skein," or upon simple studies
of beautiful reality like the "Noble Lady of Venice," "Kittens," or the
"Idyll," to quote almost at random from the long series of his
paintings which come into this last class, he never allowed himself to
forget that the result was to be as nearly in accordance with his
ideals as it could be made; and whether or not this result would be
what the public expected was the last thing about which he concerned
himself. But it was natural after all that he should feel some measure
of disappointment at the discovery that there were so few minds capable
of apprehending the supreme significance of the truths which he sought
to teach.
As an executant--an exponent of the craft of painting--he had certain
peculiarities. His technique was precise, careful, and rather
laborious, without any happy audacities of brushwork, and without any
display of cleverness for its own sake. It bore some resemblance,
perhaps, to that of painters like Prud'hon or Ary Scheffer, but it had
more vitality, and on the whole more power. Leighton, like G. F.
Watts, did not attach much importance to that ready directness of
handling which is so greatly advocated by men of the modern school; the
finish and elaboration of surface which he desired were not to be
obtained by treating his picture as if it were to be no more than a
brilliant sketch. He aimed at exhaustive accuracy of drawing, exact
correctness of modelling, the perfecting of every detail, and the equal
completion of all the parts of his canvas; and this manner of working
led necessarily to sacrifice of spontaneity of touch. But, on the
other hand, it did not result in fumbling, or in that tentative kind of
method which can be noted in the performances of artists who are
uncertain of their power to solve the more serious executive problems.
He had a regular system by which his pictures were built up stage by
stage, and he knew perfectly well how far each stage could carry him
towards the end he had in view, and how much it would contribute to the
pictorial scheme he had devised. His method was his own, and, being
his own, he used to say that it was the only one which it was right for
him to use, though for a man with other purposes in art, and another
kind of temperament, it would probably be entirely wrong.
This mode of practice, however, served Leighton well in nearly
everything he undertook. It enabled him to give charm and delicacy to
his figure subjects, and wonderful virility and strength to his
portraits, and in the painting of the landscapes which he so often used
as backgrounds to his figure compositions, it helped him to attain an
admirable serenity and breadth of effect. Where it led him astray was
in his treatment of drapery, which under his deliberate method was apt
to become lifeless through its very excess of realism. The masses of
his draperies he designed with dignity, with a fine sense of line, and
with a proper feeling for the forms of the figure beneath, but these
masses he often cut up by a multiplicity of little folds, all so
precisely drawn and carefully accounted for that they conveyed to the
eye a map-like impression of lines without meaning, and surfaces
without modelling. He seemed to have worried over them until he had
lost by needless intricacy all largeness of suggestion. But in his
portraits he maintained with rare discretion the right proportion
between large character, and the little things by which the
individuality of a face is determined. His heads of "Sir Richard
Burton" and "Professor Costa," for instance, are magnificent and give
him undoubtedly a place among the masters of portraiture.
If an attempt were made to explain in a few words Leighton's position
in art, it would probably be most correct to say that he was, by
instinct and habit of mind, more a sculptor than a painter. He looked
at nature with a sculptor's eye, and he adopted a kind of technical
process which in its progressive building up was closely akin to
modelling. And if pictures like his "Phryne," his "Clytemnestra," his
"Electra," and even his wholly charming "Bath of Psyche," are
considered from this point of view, their resemblance to beautifully
tinted sculpture is apparent enough. Even his "Cimabue's Madonna" and
the "Daphnephoria" suggest bas-reliefs. That he had the sculptor's
habit of mind is proved by many of his studies in which he drew a
figure, or group of figures, from three or four points of view, so as
to arrive at what may be called the anatomy of the pose.
But discussions as to his right to be described as a sculptor who chose
to give himself up to painting, or as a painter who had all the
qualifications to become a master of sculpture, are a little futile.
He was a great artist and he proved his powers in both forms of
practice. What is more material is that people should learn to do
justice to his greatness, and should try to estimate at its proper
worth everything that he did. To scoff at his art, as the unthinking
are ready to do, is utter folly; to say that he has no place in art
history, as a certain school of critics are in the habit of asserting,
is merely stupid prejudice; he will in years to come, when the memories
of his wonderful personality have died away, be accepted on his work
alone as one of the noblest teachers of the fundamental principles of
the best and purest type of aestheticism. His time has not yet arrived;
had he lived three or four centuries ago he would be honoured now as a
master. Because he was a man of the nineteenth century our familiarity
with him has bred, if not actually contempt, at least a habit of
undervaluing him which is almost as unreasonable.