CHAPTER VI

LIFE WANING--DEATH

1887-1896

Already in 1887 his friends noticed that Leighton showed at times that

he was overtaxing his strength. On retiring from the Academy as an

active member, Mr. George Richmond wrote:--

20 YORK STREET, PORTMAN SQUARE, W.,

_January 13, 1887_.

MY DEAR SIR FREDERIC,--I have just received your most kind and

generous note, and thank you and the Council for so promptly

complying with my request to retire from the R. Academy as an

active member.

To do it was much worse than making a will; but, having done it,

I am greatly relieved.

Had it been earlier it would have been wiser; but as delay has

not forfeited the esteem of my dear President and others, I am

thankful and content.

But one word of parting advice I crave to offer, which my

admiration of your rule and guidance in your high office

constrains me to make.

Many of us have remarked that you draw upon your strength too

severely; my parting words then are, and please accept, follow,

and forgive them:--

Spare yourself when you can, that you may long be spared to give

yourself, when you ought.

And now farewell, from your loyal and affectionate old friend,

GEO. RICHMOND.

From San Martino, 20th September 1889, Leighton wrote to his

father:--

SAN MARTINO, _September 20 (1889)_.

DEAR DAD,--I received your letter two or three days ago, but

have deferred answering till I could say something one way or

another about my health, for of course I have nothing else to

tell of in these high latitudes. Well, I am in fairly good trim,

and as well as I am likely to be till I leave, for San Martino

will be shorn of my presence on Friday next as ever is (my

address for the first fortnight in October will be Hotel

Brufani, _Perugia_). On the other hand, if you were to ask me

whether I am "as fit as a fiddle" or a "flea," or "as a strong

man requiring to run a race," or "a giant refreshed," or "a

bridegroom coming forth from his chamber," or whatever simile

you like, I am obliged to own that I am not. I am aware that the

air is superb, and when I get on to an exposed slope and open my

mouth like a carp I am further aware at (and for) the time--so

to speak, "for this once only"--of very gratifying symptoms;

then they are fugitive, and my _average_ condition is perhaps a

little less satisfactory than on Hampstead Heath. On the other

hand, of course, such air _must_ in some occult way be

benefiting my tissues, and I shall no doubt, as the stock phrase

is, "feel _so_ much better _afterwards_." Meanwhile, I undergo

much humiliation; whilst _ladies_ make with comfort and ease

delightful ascents to neighbouring peaks, I humbly pant up an

anthill or two, resting at every third yard--puffy, helpless,

effete. And lest I should console myself with inexpensive

commonplace about my years, &c. &c., I have before me two

acquaintances, _not_ climbers by trade, one 65 and the other

(most charming of men, Sir James Paget) 73, who put in their

twelve, sixteen, or even at a pinch eighteen or twenty miles to

my one, and back again without turning a hair or having a

vestige of fatigue! Ugh!!

I am most truly sorry that your strength did not enable you to

see Manchester; but it is _wonderful_ that you do what you do on

the doorstep of 89!--Your affectionate son,

FRED.

From Tours, October 30, he wrote to Mrs. Matthews:--

TOURS, _October 30, 1890_.

I hope, when I get back next week, that I shall find the old dad

fairly well. More can't be expected; and especially I hope to

find Lina drawing within sight of the end of her anxious

toil.[83] I am delighted to hear that she means to leave town

again for a bit--a _good_ bit, I hope. Tell her with my love

that she is to make herself _very_ comfortable, and _not to look

at the money_, but _send for a cheque whenever convenient_. She

_must_, in justice to herself, do her work under the most

favourable circumstances she can command.

I have, of course, no particular news; I have been visiting

_till now_. (I am going to-morrow to Blois and Chambord.)

Nothing but old familiar scenes with the old familiar enjoyment,

in the more serious sense of the word, but not of course with

the old buoyancy of spirit--_that_ must necessarily fade with

every year now, and I must be content with an occasional little

flicker of the waning candle. I have, however, been better in

health during the second than during the first half of my

holiday. In Rome I was the whole time with old Nino,[84] whom I

further took on a _Giro_ to Siena and Florence. I also gave him

a commission: very few things could give him so much pleasure

(_inside_--he is not demonstrative!), and _nothing_ is now so

needful to him. His lameness is not as bad as I had feared; but

he had a bad attack of his enemy, rheumatism, at Florence, and

had to bolt back to his people. Of course, too, his anxiety

about Georgina, my god-daughter, who has only just pulled

through a terrible illness, has put a heavy strain on him in

every way.

Weather has broken up; of late _bitter_ cold, to-day cold _plus_

rain, worthy of London.

On January 24, 1892, Doctor Leighton died at the age of ninety-two, at

11 Kensington Park Gardens, where for many years, every Sunday when in

London, Leighton invariably went to see his father and his two sisters

at five o'clock, remaining to the last minute before dinner. This

regular habit he continued after Doctor Leighton's death; Mrs.

Sutherland Orr living on in the same house and Mrs. Matthews in the

close vicinity. In the autumn of 1893 Leighton was advised to go to

the Hotel Riffel Alp, Zermatt. "What a stupendous view this is from my

window," he wrote. "Weather in the main superb; it is finest for this

scenery when it is not fine. Knee still rather troublesome--nuisance!

Am seeing a doctor." In the October of the same year he wrote to Mrs.

Matthews:--

VERONA (Italy again!),

_October 2, 1893_.

DEAR GUSSY,--I hope you are not very savage with me for not

writing sooner. I've had a tremendous "Hetztour" through

Germany--_thirty_ towns in thirty days; a Yankee might be proud

of it; and over an area contained between _Luebeck_ (N.), if you

please, and Berne (S.), Vienna (E.), and Colmar (W.), and I have

made notes everywhere, _and_ I have a game knee, with the result

(not so much of the game knee as of the hurried travelling) that

I have had little time for writing anything beyond notes of

immediate necessity. But you _will_ be savage at hearing that I

never received your Munich letter (alluded to in Lina's last),

either at the hotel or "Postlagernd"--can you remember at what

_date_ you wrote it? I would _try_ to recover it--I hate losing

letters, don't you? Thank Lina for her letter, and say that I am

concerned at the very poor and shabby account given of her. She

was going to send for the doctor; I hope he was able to help her

(though I don't know on what plea one expects that of a doctor).

By this time you may have recovered from your cure. What a

rickety lot we are! At Perugia, where I shall be on Wednesday, I

am going under physic for my knee, which, though hardly more

than an inconvenience, is a very depressing prospect. I have

written to Roberts, who has sent me prescriptions which I shall

have made up (to-morrow) by his namesake in Florence. My journey

has been, I am bound to say, in a high degree interesting and

sometimes delightful. (I wonder whether you were ever at

Hildesheim--its amazing picturesqueness, Renaissance houses,

carved and painted, are enough to make your hair curl for the

rest of your natural life.) But I have not bought a single

German novel, after all the trouble you took twice over, except

_Soll und Haben_, which I have just begun; how amazingly

_altmodisch_ and stodgy it is, but evidently very clever. I have

grown very indolent about reading in trains. Wednesday I reach

Perugia--Thursday I shall take a holiday--Friday I shall--but

enough! In Berlin I saw dear old Joe (Dr. Joachim)--(the only

person I did see, except Malet, the Ambassador, a very old

friend of mine--very snug and _good_ little bachelor dinner

there--"just as you are"). He (Joe) seemed very fit after "les

eaux" somewhere, and sent you kind messages. He was pleased at

my calling, and came next day to see me off at the station.

In August 1894 he took his sister, Mrs. Matthews, to Bayreuth. On his

rapidly returning to London he completed the panel he presented to the

Royal Exchange. He worked hard at this for three weeks. He then went

to Scotland, and finished his holiday, as usual, in Italy. On his

return, after attending the first Monday Popular concert at St. James'

Hall, when walking to the Athenaeum he was seized by his first attack

of angina pectoris. Dr. Roberts, to whom Leighton was attached, and in

whose judgment and skill he had had great confidence for years,

writes, "I attended Lord Leighton for over twenty years. I was

constantly seeing and watching him. He never was a robust man; but all

his organs kept in health till two years before his death, when I

discovered the commencement of the trouble that ultimately proved

fatal. I never told him of this condition, as I felt its progress

would be slow.... He once told me he considered my fees to him were

too small, and asked me to increase them." Some years previous to this

first attack Leighton would say, "I always see Dr. Roberts every

Sunday for him to tell me I am not ill." In November 1894 Sir Lauder

Brunton was called in for consultation, and he and Dr. Roberts

prescribed a course of Swedish massage; and to this Leighton devoted

the later hours of his afternoons for several months that winter. Work

continued as vigorously as ever. The pictures--"Lachrymae," "'Twixt

Hope and Fear," "Flaming June," "Listener," "Clytie," "Candida," "The

Vestal," "A Bacchante," "The Fair Persian," were the fruit of the last

year's labours, besides the sketches which he painted on his last

journeys to Algiers, Ireland, and Italy.

[Illustration: "SUMMER SLUMBER." 1894

By permission of Mr. Phillipson]

[Illustration: SKETCH FOR "SUMMER SLUMBER." 1894

Presented by H.M. the King to the Leighton House Collection]

Very characteristic was the manner in which Leighton faced his

condition. Absolutely natural as he invariably was, without

nervousness, and considerate to the last degree in not making his

state a burden on others, he never, even at this juncture,

concentrated his thoughts on himself. Once when a friend implored him

to draw in and not expend his strength unnecessarily, he answered,

with almost impatience, "But that would not be life to me! I must go

on, thinking about it as little as possible." There was something of

the boy about Leighton up to the very end, and in those last months

much of the pathos of the boy who is known to be doomed, but who plays

his game with just as much eager verve up to the end.

Mr. Briton Riviere, the comrade whose nature was so worthily tuned to

Leighton, writes:--

One of the last times that I met him actively employed was at a

committee meeting of the Athenaeum. He had some pain and

difficulty in climbing the stairs to the committee-room, and

evident pain in speaking; but because he felt that the candidate

he proposed ought to be elected, and that no one else would

propose him with more earnest conviction than he could (and he

was the best proposer of a candidate I have ever heard), he came

there at all risks to himself and _would_ have done so against

all opposition and all disadvantages, simply because he thought

it his particular duty to do so. This is only a type of the

manner in which he treated all his official work during those

last years of physical suffering which he fought so bravely.

Watching him, it was then I recognised that he was on the same

plane as the seaman who never strikes his flag, and at the last

goes down practically unvanquished.

Every day that grey pallor increased, and that sunken, indescribable

look of waning life in the face. Nevertheless Leighton lived much as

before, never making illness an excuse for avoiding any duty. As

matters grew more serious his doctors enforced a rest--a voyage--an

absence from the May Academy Banquet. At this juncture Leighton

tendered his resignation as President of the Academy. It was not

accepted.

To Mr. Briton Riviere he wrote:--

DEAR RIVIERE,--Many thanks for your most kind words. I have been

deeply touched by the generous, and, I must almost say,

affectionate attitude of my brother members in this painful

conjuncture. How much I value _your_ friendship, you, I am sure,

know.--Sincerely yours always,

FRED LEIGHTON.

He decided on leaving England for two months, and fixed on Algiers as

a dry climate likely to suit his health. It had lived in his memory

also ever since the first visit in 1857, as a country singularly

fascinating to him. Before leaving he fulfilled his duties as

President in choosing the pictures for that year's Exhibition. These

duties he had often described as the most wearing of the whole year.

His intense sense of duty, and desire to judge in every case the

interests of the individual artist together with those of art, fairly

and adequately, inflicted a strain and entailed an indescribable

fatigue, he said, even when he was well. During those days in 1895 he

suffered acutely.

From Hotel Continental, Tangiers, 18th April 1895, Leighton wrote:--

DEAR WELLS,--Although letters do not leave these wilds daily and

take an unconscionable time, as I now find, on the way, I trust

this will reach you in time for the first varnishing day, on

which I believe you hold the general meeting; it carries with

it warm and grateful--and _envious_ greetings to you all. These

you will, I know, deliver to my brother members at lunch, for

then only is the _whole_ body gathered together. They, knowing

me, will understand my humiliation at not being under arms and

at my post at this season. I wish I could ask you to tell them

that I see much sign of betterment in my condition: the slowness

of my cure--if cure it be--is, of course, depressing; but I

shall comfort myself on Thursday with the thought that perhaps,

at some time between one and two, you are wishing well to one

who claims to be a faithful friend to you all. I look forward

keenly to what will, I feel sure, be the admirable performance

of our dear old Millais. Unfortunately, I have not the remotest

notion of where I shall be when the news might reach me--in

Africa or in Europe--but reach me it will in time. You perhaps

think of me as basking in the sun between blue skies and blue

seas. How different are the facts! Blustering winds,

occasionally rain, chilly atmosphere, everything murky and

without colour! A change _should_ not be far off, for this sort

of thing has prevailed for a month and more. I did not bargain

for it.

I hope, my dear Wells--and indeed I do not doubt--that you are

getting on well and comfortably with your vice-regency, and am

always yours sincerely,

FRED LEIGHTON.

TANGIERS, _April 25, 1895_.

DEAR LINA,--The day before yesterday I received your nice long

letter--you had not yet got mine from Gib.--and yesterday one

came from poor Gussy, and I am going, as you will both believe

when this reaches you, to kill two birds with one epistolary

stone. First, let me say that I am grieved--I dare hardly say,

_surprised_, for it is, alas! a wicked way you both have--to

hear that neither of you has derived any benefit, to speak of,

by your outing, and you indeed, poor dear, appear to be a little

worse. The fact is that at our ages, _con rispetto_, when one

happens to have pretty homes, one _does_ miss them under the

discomforts and shortcomings of lodgings or inns. As for me,

though I am fairly comfortable here, I have whiffs of a certain

"House Beautiful" in Kensington which are very tantalising. How

am I? Well, I think I may at last claim a _little_ improvement,

of course I give myself every chance, and am superlatively,

disgracefully lazy, _and put myself to no tests_; but I notice

this, that though I have my regulation three attacks (when not

more) a day, they are milder, I think, and I _know_ that I can

get rid of them almost immediately by certain respiratory

exercises my Swede taught me. This I assume is again _no more

capsules_, we shall see.

Yes, I do perfectly remember the old home in St. Katherine's at

Bath, and should hugely like to see it. I hope when the old

inhabitant goes off, it will fall into reverent hands.

No, I have not yet tackled Nordau. I am looking forward to him

much, but have so far, except some Pater (Greek studies), mostly

fribbled; two or three Spanish novels; a few short tales by

Hardy, clever, but his figures are talking dolls, taught out of

a book; _L'Innocente_, dull, but not so _coarse_ as I had

understood. "Tales of Mean Streets"--now there, if you like, is

powerful stuff. For pithy terseness and absolute sobriety of

means, for subtle and humorous observation and scathing

directness, they are unrivalled; but oh! what a picture! what a

state of things, and who shall ever let the light into the

tenebrous and foul depths? But how funny too, and grim; the old

woman who pockets the ten shillings given for port, in order

that she may have mutes at the funeral! Have also read

"Keynotes." Clever, one or two even powerful, but other than I

expected. Who is the woman? half Norse? half Irish? The writing

is bad; intentionally, apparently; a cross between an

interviewer and Ibsen for scrappy abruptness. _Her_ keynote is

belief in the _immeasurable_ (but not explained) superiority of

women, whom no man can _understand_; well, certainly, _I_ don't

know _wo sie hinaus will_.

I have had more kind notes, this is a kind world _tout de meme_.

When stodgy, elderly Englishmen talk to me of the number of

people who _love_ me, I feel quite a lump in my throat. Of

another kind, but pretty, is the enclosed from W. Watson, the

poet, whom I admire, you know; nice also the telegram. I wrote a

_menschlich_ letter when her husband died (_I_ have known them

nearly forty years), and again a pretty letter t'other day about

the wedding.

But I _must_ finish this scribble. I shall be gone when you get

this, write _Algiers_ (poste restante), I shall get it _some_

time or other, but am still vague.

Love to poor Gussy.--Afft. bro.,

FRED.

Leighton enclosed the following from William Watson, and the telegram

from the Comtesse de Paris:--

66 CHERITON ROAD, FOLKESTONE,

_April 18, 1895_.

DEAR SIR FREDERIC LEIGHTON,--May I venture to say, somewhat

superfluously, what a delight it was to be made free of your

Palace of Art on a recent Sunday, and how highly I valued the

privilege. Mr. Wilfrid Meynell had already made me happy by

reporting the generous things you had said about my verses. I

wish the great pleasure thus given me were not alloyed by the

news of your temporarily impaired health. But in common with the

rest of the world I hope those sunnier regions to which you

perhaps feel more spiritually akin than to our own may quickly

renew your full energies.

Pray forgive anything which may be intrusive or otherwise

unwarrantable in this letter, and believe me, dear Sir

Frederick, with very grateful sense of your kindness, and pride

in your good opinion, yours sincerely,

WILLIAM WATSON.

SIR FREDERIC LEIGHTON, Bart., P.R.A.

_Telegram._]

_April 16, 1895._

TO SIR FREDERIC LEIGHTON,

2 HOLLAND PARK ROAD,

KENSINGTON, LONDON.

Profondement touchee de votre si bonne lettre et aimables voeux

pour ma fille, je vous en remercie de tout mon coeur, y voyant

une nouvelle preuve de votre amitie. Je regrette vivement pas

avoir le plaisir de vous revoir avant longtemps, mais suis sure

penserez a moi.

COMTESSE PARIS.

BUCKINGHAM.

On arriving at Alger, Leighton wrote:--

HOTEL D'EUROPE, ALGER,

_May 9, 1895_.

DEAR WELLS,--I got your first kind letter three days ago at

Tlencen, and this morning, on passing through this place, your

very interesting account of the Banquet. I know you will not

resent a _very_ brief acknowledgment; I have _one_ day here

only, and a large pile of letters, with a good many of which I

must deal, however laconically, at once. I need not assure you

that your most kind words, like so many manifestations of

friendship that I have received, touch me to the quick and will

not be forgotten. That my dear old friend Millais could carry

away his audience by his earnest and intense personality, I was

quite certain. I rejoice in my heart at his success, apart from

what I feel about his affectionate and warm expressions. It is

worth while to break down, to be treated with such infinite

kindness as I have met with everywhere amongst my colleagues and

friends. I know you will like to hear that I am at last very

decidedly better; in another month--for I don't mean to come

home sooner--I really expect to be externally quite patched

up--of course, the warning and the constant threat will remain

by me, but I shall try to be careful, and hope yet for long to

be the devoted servant of my brother members in the Academy.

Meanwhile, believe me, always sincerely yours,

FRED LEIGHTON.

_P.S._--I trust you have not suffered in your throat, which is a

frequent anxiety to you from the necessity of much speaking. _I_

know how trying that is.

HOTEL D'EUROPE, ALGER,

_May 21, 1895_.

DEAR LINA,--In an hour or two I leave for Europe, and in three

weeks I shall be home again in comfortable Kensington.

I am grieved that you should have been worried--as well you

might--by that idiotic report that I should not return to

society or my profession (I wonder who invented it!), but you

were fortunately soon relieved; I think I told you about the

trouble Reuter and Hardy took in the matter. By-the-bye, you

were right in supposing that the "long walk" was also a figment

of the correspondents.

I am very glad to hear that you and Gussy are both at all events

a little better at last. My bulletin is chequered, but certain

things are satisfactory; in the first place, I see that fine

weather and sun and pure air and the rest of it have nothing

whatever to do with my condition; this, as I can't choose my

climate, is distinctly reassuring; also, the fact of my having

been much better shows that I may hope distinctly for much

improvement: in the other, a certain relapse which is now upon

me shows how needful caution is, only it is disappointing to

have had to go back to capsules. I have had in the main a most

enjoyable time; have been very fortunate in the weather,

inasmuch as the heat has not yet been intolerable, and I have

done some work which will be useful perhaps and certainly

delightful as a reminiscence and suggestion. A variety of

untoward things, one on the top of the other, no doubt quite

account for my, I hope not durable, relapse, and I have no doubt

when I write again I shall be able to report fresh improvement.

The odd thing is, the bad effects _last_ so curiously. I

understand hot railway journeys, bad food, &c. &c., telling on

me, but I have been now two whole days and a bit in Algiers in

_utter_ idleness, and a great deal on my back, and yet this

morning I got an attack _lying in bed_! but don't let this

disturb you--for several weeks I was much better and required

_no_ capsules at all. This short little note will reach you, I

suppose, on Friday morning; a line on that day or on Saturday or

Sunday, just to say that it has reached you would catch me at

the Hotel Continental, Rue Castiglione, _Paris_. Please tell me,

on the altogether improbable chance of my "looking in" on the

Channel Islands, what the _best_ hotels are--I _must_ be

comfortable. Best love to Gussy.--From your affectionate old

brother,

FRED.

_P.S._--I wrote to the P. of W.'s secretary, asking him to say

how much H.R.H.'s kind words had gratified me--I enclose the

answer, which is nice, I think.

On Leighton's return to London he resumed his duties as President. He

tried to believe what Sir Lauder Brunton hoped, but found it somewhat

difficult to do so in the face of _facts_, he used to say. He,

however, assumed that he was mending. On 19th July 1895 he wrote:--

DEAR BRITON RIVIERE,--Very many thanks for your kind and

thoughtful note. Do not think of postponing your motion; I have

already been the innocent cause of the postponement of two very

contentious motions in Council; I could not think of standing

further in the way--pray, therefore, proceed with it. I had a

nasty attack at that meeting but have felt no after effects, and

am no doubt slowly mending. In haste, yours ever sincerely,

FRED LEIGHTON.

[Illustration: "THE FAIR PERSIAN"

(Unfinished at the time of Lord Leighton's death.) 1896

By permission of Sir Elliott Lees]

From his account to his friends after his return, his health had

varied while abroad in an unaccountable manner, except in one instance

where, as my husband and I knew from personal experience, the

conditions were normally unhealthy. This evidently was the cause for

his having had specially violent attacks at Morlaix in Brittany, which

he visited on his journey home--and where, some years previously, our

whole party had become more or less ill, owing, it was thought, to the

unhealthiness of the place. His condition was much the same as when he

left England. He worked steadily in his studio, and received the

guests at the Annual Soiree of the Royal Academy. At the conclusion of

the function a friend asked him how it had really fared with him--for

apparently his vitality had appeared, as usual, inexhaustible. "I

think the attacks must be greatly a matter of nerves," he answered. "I

have stood here three hours and a quarter and have not had one,--while

I was dressing and fearing how I should get through it, I had

_three_."

Leighton did not go to Scotland that autumn but to the wild west coast

of Ireland, again to that Malinmore that had so greatly fascinated

him, and whose wild beauty he had longed for his sister to enjoy,

"taking her courage in one hand, her goloshes in a second, and

umbrella in the third."[85] On his way there he wrote to Mrs. Orr:--

IMPERIAL HOTEL,

PEMBROKE STREET, CORK,

_Thursday, September 5, 1895_.

DEAR LINA,--I was glad to glean from your letter of last

Thursday that, taking it all round, you are having a fairly good

time, and Gussy ditto. (I can't stand _wind_ either, it

aggravates my system.) I've never seen Mull--should like to--but

_not_ being a sociable bird (like you) should wish to have no

acquaintances. Is it Napier of _Magdala_? if so, I knew the old

lord of that ilk; indeed, to be accurate, I knew him even if it

was not so; or Lord Napier of _Ettrick_? if so ditto, ditto. It

is always the previous lot _I_ knew. By this time you will have

been to Lindisfarne[86] (lovely name!)--if you did not enjoy the

sands and the Abbey you need not call on me again. I suppose you

are at home now. In a week or two I shall no doubt know how I

am. Just off to Killarney, then Galway, then _Malinmore_, County

Donegal, where I shall be from (say) the 10th to (say) the 17th,

your affectionate old brother.

In another letter he wrote to Mrs. Orr: "I am too glad that you have

made acquaintances--been a gregarious person. If I make an

acquaintance anywhere, I have simply lost the game." From Malinmore on

September 19th he wrote to me: "I'm sorry that you saw Scotland in a

mist; its beauty is _succulent colour_--you want rain first and then a

burst of sun--I am enjoying unsociable solitude keenly, like the bear

I am; health so so; I'm sowing patience, but so far reaping nothing in

particular. In a fortnight, off to Italy." On this visit to his

"second home" Leighton began with Venice, from whence he wrote to me

Oct. 9th: "The wind is howling and the rain pouring down in

torrents--not a correct attitude in Venice--I'm no better." Leighton

next went to Naples, where he wrote the following letter to Mrs.

Orr:--

HOTEL BRISTOL, NAPLES,

_October 18, 1895_.

DEAR LINA,--I am sorry that you and Gussy don't see your way to

going to Bayreuth, since it is your health that seems to stand

in the way; other reasons are all my eye. I KNOW from Gussy's

own mouth that she would particularly like to hear the Siegfried

Tetralogy at Bayreuth (and this _may_ be the last time of giving

it _there_), I _know_ also that, given, of course, the Fuersten

Loge with its facilities, you would like to go, because you have

said so. Well it will remain open in case you change what you,

fondly and perhaps sincerely, regard as your minds.

I am very glad you take such a very sensible view of my ailment,

because it makes it more easy to speak of it; I also live in the

hope and, almost, expectation, that it will fizzle out some day

of its own accord, and this enables me to bear up against the

entire absence _at present_ of any improvement. I have at last

finished my "Nordau," which I have read through from cover to

cover; it is a very vigorous and remarkable book and of riveting

interest to any one who likes polemics (from _outside_) as I do.

The author is at his best when he is dissecting a particular

victim--say Nietzsche--on the other hand one is not a little

repelled by his astoundingly unparliamentary insolence, his not

infrequent disingenuousness and _spitzfindelei_ and his curious

narrownesses and lacunae. The _Boecke die er schneidet_ when he

gets on the subject of graphic art are quite comic. The fact is

he is in some respects absolutely devoid of perception, like an

otherwise most intelligent and cultured man who should have no

ear for music. What, for instance, can we say of a man who

asserts, as a truism, that aesthetic and _sexual_(!) feelings

(not sensual but "_geschlechtlich_") are not merely akin but

actually cover one another to a very large extent! I doubt

whether there is anything chaster than the sense of beauty in

abstract form; he has no inkling of this. When all is said and

done he is himself in some measure a _crypto_degenerate, if I

may so call him; degeneracy is a _Zwangsvorstellung_ with him,

he sees it everywhere; a curious instance is his seeing it in

the fondness of English writers for alliteration; of course he

knows, with his wide culture, better than I do that this

assonance of the beginning of words dates from the dawn of our

literature; _he might_, no doubt, say, "Yes! it is a

_Rueckschlag_," but he would therein give another proof of his

ineptitude in aesthetic matters. In _every_ Art, _iteration_, of

which alliteration is a form, has ever been a powerful source of

expression and charm. Meanwhile his last, remarkable, chapter

"Therapie" takes a good deal of the sting out of the book; he

owns that certain peculiarities--excess of sensibility and the

like--are present in _nearly all art_, that it is, in fact, only

a question of a degree and, he adds, in a passage which Gussy

has marked, "Who shall say _where_, exactly, madness begins?"

Amen! And that little (or large) spice of something which

_might_ be madness if there was much more of it, has given to us

poor mortals some of our keenest delights--"more grease to its

elbow," say I, in my vulgar way. But, I say! Nietzsche!!

eh?--I've also read J. Kowaleski, with great interest--but,

crikey! _what_ a creature to live with!!

Tell Gussy, with my love, that I have got the usual two seats

(Queen's Hall) for the November _Wagner_. Tell her to keep the

day open.--Afftly. yrs.

FRED.

From Naples he travelled to Rome to find his dear friend Giovanni

Costa, with whom he spent the last weeks of his holiday. Of this visit

Costa wrote the following in his "Notes":--

"His last study from nature was painted in Rome in October 1895,

for the unfinished picture of 'Clytie,' exhibited in the Royal

Academy, 1896. It was a study of fruit, and he enjoyed working

on it for several hours, though he was then ill; and I believe

that the hours he passed in the courtyard of the Palazzo

Odeschalchi painting these fruits, which he had arranged on a

marble sarcophagus, afforded him, perhaps, the last artistic

pleasures he ever enjoyed. It is true that after this he went to

the Vatican, to Siena, and to Florence, where he saw for the

last time the masterpieces with which these towns abound. But,

standing before the great works of the masters of the past, he

could only sigh.

"He worshipped children, and his pictures of children with fruit

and flowers are among the most delicious and spontaneous work

ever done by him in painting. And I can see him again, during

the last visit he paid to Rome in 1895, on his knees before my

little girl, to accede to her request that she should have a

lock of his hair as a remembrance."

Nothing could give a better record of two sides of Leighton's nature,

often believed to be incompatible, than the contents of the letter

from Naples to his sister, with its remarks on Nordau, Nietzsche, and

the like, and this beautiful picture recalled by his old friend

Costa--Leighton on his knees before a little child. The intellect

which could crack the hardest of intellectual nuts was surmounted by

lowly reverence for all beauty, most ardently adored when that beauty

came to him in its most innocent childlike garb.

Writing to me on his return on November the 6th Leighton says: "I

shall try to look in to-morrow at five. I want very much to hear

Fuller-Maitland's preachment" (Lectures on Purcell were being given at

our house previous to the Purcell Festival). "I am sorry to say I am

no better, rather worse." On being asked the next day, as he came into

our house, "How is it?" the answer Leighton gave was, "Oh, worse!

Sometimes fifteen attacks a day." On his birthday, the 3rd of

December, he wrote to his sister:--

2 HOLLAND PARK ROAD, KENSINGTON, W.,

_December 3, 1895_.

DEAR LINA,--The grand leaves in a mossy pot, and the sweet

flowers, and the poems, and your letter, came all together. I

know you will let me answer you both on one piece of paper. I

know, dears, how true is your love, and though I am not a

demonstrative person, it is very precious to me. I know you will

both like to hear that after an _hour's_ innings between L.

Brunton, Dr. Tunnicliffe his partner, Roberts, and three most

ingenious scientific instruments, and after tapping and

auscultating of my wretched ear cap fore and aft, it was

pronounced that (in some mysterious way) I am _not_ worse, but

_better_; well, I am glad to hear it; meanwhile my medicine is

being strengthened, and will be again in the (pretty certain)

event of its requiring more strength. L.B. quite _hopes_ to rig

me out for the May banquet. Much love to both from affectionate

old brother.

On the 14th he wrote to his friend Mr. Henry Wells:--

2 HOLLAND PARK ROAD, KENSINGTON, W.,

_December 14, 1895_.

DEAR WELLS,--Many thanks for your kind letter, relying on which

I hasten to "nail" you for the _27th_; I shall be very much

disappointed if you say me "nay." I never give a _long_ notice,

in part so as to bring about a little shuffling of cards, and

relieving my guests of a certain monotony of routine which might

in the end irk them. I need not assure you that I am most warmly

sensible to the vigilant and truly friendly interest which you

manifest concerning my health; believe me, if I differ from you

in not believing in the efficacy or feasibility of a suspension

of activity for a year or two, it is in no unreasoning or

perverse spirit (and let me, by-the-bye, say in passing that I

have, for a few days past, certainly been a little better).

Putting aside for a moment the fact that I have for the next

year, and more, definite professional _obligations_ in the way

of commissioned work (which is, unfortunately, not incompatible

with having a certain number of unsold works!), to withdraw from

Academic duties would mean _leaving England_ for the period in

question; it would be morally impossible to remain here,

apparently in robust health, congratulated constantly, as I am,

on my healthy appearance, going about unrebuked by a _very_

cautious doctor (Lauder Brunton), taking the pleasures of life

_apparently_ without any stint (as a matter of _fact_ I am very

quiet and regular, and under _continuous_ medical treatment),

and then shirking all its _duties_; but experience has shown

that I gain nothing by absence--by change of climate and the

rest; and, on the other hand, my temperament being what you

know, the withdrawal from my active life would infallibly prey

on me and have a marked effect on my health through my spirits;

this is also the opinion of Lauder Brunton. My care must be to

live quietly but not idly, and thus try to mend gradually, as I

doubtless shall, in the hands of my doctor _and my masseur_.

_If_, which God forbid, I am pronounced still unfit in May, I

will bow, with whatever bitterness, to the judgment, but till

then I must not forego hope. Meanwhile, you have all done me

infinite service in prohibiting the "Discourse" for this year--I

can't say how grateful I was for that! I shall also avoid, as

far as may be, all _controversy_ at our table; that is the worst

thing of all by far, for yours sincerely always,

FRED LEIGHTON.[87]

With the New Year honours and among those bestowed was a Peerage on

Leighton, who was created Lord Leighton, Baron of Stretton (see chap.

i. vol. i., Antecedents). Needless to say, congratulations poured in

from all sorts and conditions. One of these in writing was preserved

because enclosed in a note to his sister.

_January 13, 1896._

MY DEAR LEIGHTON,--I have just come back from Italy, and hope

that it is not too late to tell you with how much satisfaction I

read of the mark of honour that has been accepted by you. I am

not a passionate admirer of the legislative feats of the House

of Lords, but so long as it stands, it is well that such a man

as you should sit there. I hope that the thing has given you

pleasure, and for my poor part I rejoice both as a friend and as

a humble admirer of art and genius that this honourable

recognition has fallen to you.--Yours sincerely,

JOHN MORLEY.

Not a word of reply, I pray.

From his native place Leighton received the following:--

When it was announced on Wednesday that the Queen had been

pleased to confer the dignity of a Peerage of the United Kingdom

upon Sir Frederic Leighton, Bart., President of the Royal

Academy, who is a native of Scarborough, having been born here

sixty-five years ago, the Mayor (Alderman Cross, J.P.) sent the

following telegram:--"Sir Frederic Leighton, 2 Holland Park

Road, London, the Mayor, Corporation, and inhabitants of

Scarborough present their hearty congratulations on the honour

conferred upon you.--The Mayor, Scarborough." The next morning

the following reply was received:--"The Mayor of

Scarborough,--Sincere thanks for congratulations from my

birthplace.

LEIGHTON."

Leighton had been loath to acquaint his sisters with the real nature

of his complaint, as he was aware how much their anxiety for him would

be increased if they knew. However, he at last felt it was necessary

to tell them. Very characteristically, he chose the moment when they

were at the theatre, thinking it might produce a less painful shock

when mentioned casually, and when their attention might be distracted

more easily. It was difficult, however, under any circumstances to

temper the blow. Leighton wrote the next Sunday--"I do hope I shall

find you better this afternoon.... I ought not to have spoken to you

about my ailment." I received the following in Somerset, dated January

20, dictated, ... "As I am (not to put too fine a point on it) in bed

with a very bad cough at this moment, you will, I know, forgive my

using the hand of a secretary in writing to you. I see that you want a

contribution for Mrs. Watts Hughes' Home for Boys; I therefore enclose

a cheque." ... On the day following, Tuesday, his doctors decreed that

he should remain in his room, but on Wednesday, the day after,

Leighton insisted on getting into his studio, where he worked all the

morning from models. In the afternoon he drove in his open

carriage--certainly without the permission of his doctors!--to

Westminster, getting out and standing in the raw damp of a cold

January afternoon to watch the pulling down of some old houses which

had interested him. In the evening he wrote to me a letter, which

happened to be the last he penned. A Lecture was to be given for the

benefit of Mrs. Watts Hughes' Home for Boys; and in return for

Leighton's contribution I had sent him four five shilling tickets to

give away, offering to change them for half guinea tickets, but

suggesting it would be most rash of him to go himself. However, he

intended to go, and wrote that Wednesday evening:--

DEAR MRS. BARRINGTON,--... Since you are good enough to offer to

change the tickets for tenners, I will ask you to do so, and

thank you in advance. Yes, Mackail's book, which oddly enough I

_have_ read--for, alas! I never read now--is an exquisite bit of

work.

When the Lecture was given on the evening of January 29, Leighton had

left us already four days!

At five o'clock on Thursday morning, January 23, he woke, feeling

terrible pain and great distress in breathing, but would not ring for

his servant because he believed him to be delicate, and thought it

might hurt him to be disturbed so early. At seven he rang, and Dr.

Roberts, who was telegraphed for, at once saw that the situation was

of the gravest. Sir Lauder Brunton also was summoned. Leighton's

servant had promised his sisters that they should be sent for at once

if the symptoms at any time became more acute; but on his mentioning

this, Leighton said he must not send for Mrs. Orr and Mrs. Matthews,

as they were both more ill than he was. However, as the morning went

on and there were no signs of any change for the better, the sisters

were told of his condition, and at once came--not leaving him till the

end.

On Thursday afternoon, when he was supposed to be sinking, and they

were with him alone, he expressed his wishes as to his property--the

sums of money he wished given to various friends--adding that he

should like ten thousand pounds to be given to the Royal Academy.

These were wishes expressed--not legacies, as he left his whole

property unconditionally to his sisters, and believed that they, as

next-of-kin, would, as a matter of course, be his heirs.

Contrary to the doctor's expectations, Leighton rallied on the Friday,

and hopes were expressed that he might recover from the acute attack

from which he was suffering. On his hearing this, he exclaimed to his

sisters, "Would it not have been a pity if I had had to die just when

I was going to paint better!"

On the Saturday morning the gravest symptoms returned, and every hope

vanished. It was then suggested to Leighton that it would be better

for him to make a will, and his lawyer was sent for; but it was some

time before he could arrive. Though the agony was great, Leighton

refused all alleviations till his will was written out. It was as

follows:--

This is the last will and testament of Frederic Leighton.

I will and bequeath to my sisters, Alexandra Orr and

Augusta Newnburg Matthews, the whole estate

unconditionally.

FRED LEIGHTON.

Mrs. Orr wrote: "When the official will had been drawn up and signed,

he said, 'Does this give my sisters absolute control over all I have?'

On the lawyer answering in the affirmative, Leighton asked, 'Then no

one can interfere with them?' 'No one,' answered the lawyer; 'they are

paramount.' He was afraid that the brief paragraph was not

sufficiently strong."

After signing it, he said, "My love to the Academy"; but his last

words were spoken in German, and meant for his sisters' ears alone.

Then came the end.

* * * * *

"We went together," writes Lady Loch, "to see Fred Leighton the Sunday

before he died, and he said, 'Mind you come to "my concert." I have

just settled it all with Villiers Stanford, and it will be

beautiful.'" In about ten days after, with aching hearts at the loss

of so true, so warm, so great a friend, we attended his burial

service at St. Paul's Cathedral, seeing such proofs of real mourning

all along the Embankment and streets, for indeed every man, woman, and

child had lost a real, true friend.

[Illustration: "THE SPIRIT OF THE SUMMIT." 1894]

[Illustration: STUDY FOR "LACHRYMAE." 1895]

All who were present must ever remember the last "Music" in the March

before, when (contrasting so strongly in colour and sentiment)

"Lachrymae" and "Flaming June" stood on the easels, and for the first

time the silk room was open, hung with the work of Leighton's friends;

how, through all the beautiful strains from Joachim and the rest, a

tragic note rang out to tell, as it seemed, of the waning life of the

centre of it all. No one said it, but all felt that the last chapter

was ending of those many, many perfect pages in life known as

"Leighton's music."

A voice sang with emotion Charles Kingsley's soul-stirring verse--

"When all the world is old, lad,

And all the trees are brown;

And all the sport is stale, lad,

And all the wheels run down,

Creep home, and take your place there,

The spent and maim'd among;

God grant you find one face there

You loved when all was young."

Cruelly pathetic did it seem that one who had ever had the vitality of

a boy, who had ever been the inspirer and support of those weary

overwrought ones whose wheels had run down before their time, should

himself be stricken, creeping home "the spent and maimed among."

The studios emptied, and he came down the stairs with the last of us.

Dainty figures of girls were dancing round the fountain in the empty

Arab Hall; and as he went to the outer door they flew to him, throwing

their arms round his neck. "They are all my god-children," he said,

as each, fleet-footed, fled out of the gate. A clasp, a wring of a

friend's hand; then, ashen pale, tired and haggard, he turned back

lonely into the House Beautiful--and that book was closed.

Instead of strains of perfect song and music hailing their completion,

the six pictures of the next year looked down on the coffin, and over

a rich carpeting of beautiful flowers. In the centre, above the head,

the sun-loving "Clytie" stretched out her arms, bidding a passionate

farewell to her god.

The coffin was borne away to the Academy on Saturday, February 1,

previous to the funeral on the Monday.

[Illustration: "CLYTIE." 1896

By permission of the Fine Art Society, the owners of the

Copyright]

The following is a correct account of the public funeral, written on

the day it took place, and forwarded to Leighton's birthplace.

At half-past ten this morning, by which time a dense crowd had

collected in the neighbourhood of the Royal Academy, the workmen

commenced to remove the numerous wreaths from the Central Hall,

where the body of Lord Leighton has rested since Saturday night,

and to load the huge floral car. Prominent among these wreaths

was one from the Princess Christian; but that from the Prince

and Princess of Wales was conveyed in a separate carriage by

representatives of the Prince and Princess, General Ellis and

Lord Colville of Culross. The wreath consisted of choice white

flowers rising from a bank of delicate green foliage, and

attached was a card written by the Princess of Wales, and

inscribed as follows:--

"Life's race well run,

Life's work well done,

Life's Crown well won,

Now comes rest."

Then follow the words, "A mark of sincere and affectionate

regard, esteem, and admiration for a great artist and much

beloved friend, from Alexandra and Albert Edward." At the head

of the card were the words, "To Sir Frederic Leighton." There

was also a wreath from the Empress Frederick, bearing the words:

"From Victoria, Empress Frederick," in the Empress's own

writing.

The Queen's wreath for the funeral of Lord Leighton was sent

from Buckingham Palace this morning to Colonel the Honourable W.

Carington, by whom it was conveyed to St. Paul's Cathedral. The

wreath is composed of laurel, entwined with which are

immortelles, and it is tied with broad satin ribbon. Attached to

the wreath is an autograph card from Her Majesty, with the

following inscription: "A mark of respect from Victoria, R.I."

About five minutes to eleven the coffin was removed from the

Central Hall, and carried through the vestibule into the

quadrangle. A detachment of the Artists' Volunteers was drawn up

here, and saluted the coffin as soon as it emerged into the open

by presenting arms. The remains were placed in a glass hearse,

and the volunteers took up their position at the front and

sides. The pall-bearers, relatives, and others meanwhile formed

in procession, and punctually at eleven the cortege left the

Academy, the crowd reverentially uncovering as the hearse passed

into the street. The whole length of the route, from Piccadilly

to St. Paul's, was lined with people; but the crowds were quiet

and orderly, and maintained a clear space for the funeral

cortege without the assistance of the police. The volunteers

marched with arms reversed, and the remains of the deceased

artist were carried to their last resting-place with every

manifestation of mournful regret. Flags were at half-mast on

many public buildings, and as the solemn procession passed

slowly along, the remains were reverently saluted by the crowd.

Passing into Pall Mall by Charing Cross, the procession wended

its way through Northumberland Street, proceeding thence along

the Thames Embankment, New Bridge Street, and Ludgate Hill, St.

Paul's being reached shortly before noon.

The service in the Cathedral, which occupied an hour, was at

once picturesque as a spectacle and impressive in its solemnity

as a religious function.

More than an hour before the time appointed for the arrival of

the funeral cortege, the space available to the public in St.

Paul's was occupied, and a few minutes after eleven o'clock,

visitors of distinction, who had been provided with special

invitations, began to fill up the reserved seats in the

transept.

Among those present were representatives of the Royal Family,

the German Emperor, and the King of Belgium, members of both

Houses of Parliament, including the Speaker; delegates from

learned bodies and artistic associations, as well as from the

art committees of various provincial municipalities.

The first lesson was read by the Dean, and the succeeding

passages were given by the Bishop of Stepney; but the greater

part of the service was undertaken by the Archbishop of York,

chaplain of the Royal Academy. The musical portions of the

service were exceptionally fine, and included, as a somewhat

unusual feature, a trombone quartette.

Lord Salisbury had promised to be one of the pall-bearers, but

found himself unable to attend. The pall-bearers were

Major-General Ellis, representing the Prince and Princess of

Wales; the Duke of Abercorn, Sir Joseph Lister, Sir J. Millais,

Sir E. Thompson, Sir A. Mackenzie, and Professor Lecky.

After the coffin was lowered into the crypt by a central opening

directly beneath the dome, the two sisters of the late Lord

Leighton came to the front, and took a last look at it. When the

coffin was lowered many beautiful flowers were placed upon it,

and again, after the opening was covered up, the space was more

than covered by further wreaths sent by various Academicians,

the Royal Academy, students, and personal friends, many of whom

lingered some time after the conclusion of the solemn ceremony.

_Scarborough Evening News, February 3, 1896._

* * * * *

Leighton's death touched, as did his life, all sorts and conditions of

men; for he had been the true friend alike of the greatest and of the

least. The soil in which true distinction is rooted is of a quality

too rich, too fertile to be affected by class prejudice. Leighton's

own life was made beautiful by the gratitude he felt for the joy

nature's loveliness inspired in his soul, and by the passion to make

known through his work the mysterious treasure, the never-failing

fountain of delight, ever springing up in his heart. Lovingly human,

he ardently desired not only to pass on his own joy in beauty to every

fellow-creature who crossed his path, but, where he saw in any

possible way help could be given, to give it.

Of the eager, great-hearted Leighton, not a few can echo Romola's

tribute to Savonarola--the last words of the great book whose pages he

vivified with his art: "Perhaps I should never have learned to love

him if he had not helped me when I was in great need."

A light has passed that never shall pass away,

A sun has set whose rays are unequalled of might;

The loyal grace, the courtesy bright as day,

The strong, sweet, radiant spirit of life and light,

That shone and smiled and lightened in all men's sight,

The kindly life whose tune was the tune of May,

For us now dark, for love and for fame is bright.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.[88]

[Illustration: MONUMENT IN ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL, ERECTED AS A

MEMORIAL TO LORD LEIGHTON BY HIS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS

Sculptured by Thomas Brock, R.A.]

[Illustration: View of Inner Hall and Staircase of Leighton

House, with reproduction of Mr. Thomas Brock's R.A. Diploma

work, Bust of Lord Leighton, presented by Mr. Brock to the

Leighton House Collection in 1898.

By permission of Mr. J. Harris Stone.]

FOOTNOTES:

[83] "Life and Letters of Robert Browning."

[84] Professor Giovanni Costa.

[85] It was during this last visit to Malinmore Leighton made those

sketches of the sea thistle (see chapter iii. vol. i.), and also some

last sketches in oil.

[86] Leighton had visited Mr. Pepys Cockerell and his family at

Lindisfarne (Holy Island) more than once when going or returning from

Scotland.

[87] Mr. Percy Fitzgerald wrote the following:--

"Being in the same club with Lord Leighton, I could note many instances

of his good humour and sweetness of temper. I am happy to think, for it

was a high compliment from him, that he made my acquaintance, not I

his. He had always a pleasant word; as when, entering the writing-room

with his hasty tramp, he looked over at me, seated at the window pencil

in hand, and rushed over in his impetuous way: "Ah, one of _our_ trade,

I see!" He was particularly interested in a museum or institute at

Camberwell, and one day thanked me most warmly for having gone down to

lecture there, and that it was appreciated by the people, &c. This was

good-natured.

"The day he received his title, an old gentleman of the club, who did

not know him, congratulated him as he passed by in high-sounding

Italian. He was delighted, and poured out a reply in the same tongue,

adding some pleasant remark. This little incident quite illustrates his

_bonhomie_. It is just what Dickens would do. I gave him a copy of Sir

Joshua's Discourses, a presentation one to Burke. It was fitting that

the modern President should have it.

"How tragic were his last appearances at the Academy _soiree_! How

jaded, shrunk and haggard looked the once handsome painter! He must

have suffered cruelly, and at the end seemed worn out. There was

something of a likeness to the lamented Irving, the same sweetness of

manner, the same grace and romantic view of things. His dress was

characteristic, somewhat showy, yet not scrupulously neat like a dandy.

His clothes, like Irving's, seemed old friends, and lay about him in

roomy fashion. His somewhat unkempt beard left some traces on the

lapels of his favourite snuff-coloured coat with the flowing tails. The

blue or red silk, its ends flying free, was a note of colour. Three men

of mark, and on some points resembling each other, had each this fancy

for a somewhat theatrical attire.

"I noticed that a nervous guest innocently presented to the porter a

ticket for some artistic _soiree_, which was declined, to the

embarrassment of the visitor. But Leighton promptly stepped forward,

and kindly came to his rescue. It was curious that those three eminent

artistic beings, Dickens, Leighton, and Irving, should have perished

from outwearing their nervous systems, Leighton and Irving from

heart-failure, Dickens from an overtaxed brain."

[88] "A Reminiscence," Leighton, 1896.

APPENDIX

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS

_Delivered by_ SIR F. LEIGHTON, Bart., P.R.A., _at the Art Congress,

held at Liverpool, December 3rd, 1888_.

I cannot but feel that to some of my hearers, and to not a few of

those who do not hear me, but whom the words spoken in this place may

chance to reach through the Press, some brief explanation is, at the

outset, due as to my occupancy of this chair. To them it is known that

weighty reasons have for many years compelled me to decline all

requests--and those requests have been frequent, urgent, and most

gratifying to me in form and spirit--that I should publicly address

audiences, beyond the walls of Burlington House, on the subject which

is to occupy this Congress, the subject of Art. It is not without some

compunction that I have followed this course, but the exigencies, on

the one hand, of the duties of my office, and, on the other, a firm

purpose, which you will not, I hope, rebuke, to remain always and

before all things a working artist, have left to my too limited

strength and powers no alternative but that which I have adopted.

Nevertheless, I have felt justified in obeying the summons of the

founders of this Congress--and for this reason that, while the

far-reaching character of the effort here initiated, and my earnest

desire to contribute, in however small a measure, to whatever of good

may flow from it have seemed to make it incumbent on me to accept the

duty of saying a few words on this occasion, its comprehensive and

national character lifts it into a category wholly apart from and

outside the sphere of purely local interests such as those which I had

hitherto been invited to support.

I trust I shall be pardoned this short obtrusion of private

considerations, and that you will see in it not a movement of egotism

but the discharge of a simple debt of courtesy; which said, let me

address myself to the task imposed upon me--the task of showing cause

and need for the existence of the association which inaugurates to-day

its public work, and of arousing, if it is in my power, your efficient

sympathy in that work, that it may not remain barren and without

fruit. But here I am at once conscious of a perplexity lurking in your

minds. "Why," I hear you ask, "should an organisation have been called

into life for the sole purpose of considering in public matters

relating to the development and spread of art in this country? What

hitherto unfulfilled ends do you seek to achieve? Do you aim at the

wider extension of artistic education in this country? But vast sums

from the public purse are annually devoted to its promotion; schools

of art multiply, one might almost say swarm, over the face of the

land. Or do you tax the great municipal bodies of England with

remissness on this score? But day by day efforts in this direction

among the great provincial centres of trade and industry become more

marked and effectual. No announcement more frequently meets our eyes

than that of the opening, with due ceremony and circumstance, and

seemingly with full recognition that the event is an important one, of

spacious public galleries for the annual exhibition, or for the

permanent housing, of works of contemporary art. Or does art find

private individuals lacking in that noble spirit which so often

prompts Englishmen to devote to the enjoyment and profit of their

fellow-citizens a large share of the wealth gained by them in the

pursuit of their avocations? But a great gallery of art which rises

hard by across the road would shame and silence any such assertion.

Or, again, can it be denied that what encouragement to artists is

afforded by the purchase of innumerable pictures, at all events, was

never more liberally meted out to them than within our generation, and

does not the crowding of exhibitions, of which the name is legion,

evince abundantly the responsive attitude of the country, as far at

least as one of the arts is concerned? Are not statues multiplying in

our streets? Is not architecture, as an art, finding at this time

increasing, if tardy, acceptance at the hands of private individuals?

Is not a wholesome sense dawning among us that even a private dwelling

should not offend, nay, should conciliate, the eye of the passer-by in

our public thoroughfares? and lastly, has not a more than marked

improvement taken place within our day in the character of all those

intimate domestic surroundings which are the daily diet of our eyes,

and should be daily their delight? Are these not facts patent to all,

and do they not seem to cut from under your feet the ground on which

you seek to stand?" Yes, all this and more may be said; and I should

be blind as an observer--I should be ungrateful as one speaking in the

name of artists--did I not recognise the force of these words which I

have put into the mouth of an imaginary querist. I acknowledge with

joy that there is in all these facts, and still more in their

significance, much on which we may justly congratulate ourselves, much

that points to a quickening consciousness, a stirring of slumbering

aesthetic impulse, a receptive readiness, a growing malleability in the

general temper, which promise well; and it is precisely such a

condition of things which justifies our hope of good results from this

Congress, and in it we find our best encouragement.

Well, what then is our charge in respect to the present relation of

the country to art? What are the shortcomings for which we are here to

seek a remedy? Our charge is that with the great majority of

Englishmen the appreciation of art, as art, is blunt, is superficial,

is desultory, is spasmodic; that our countrymen have no adequate

perception of the place of art as an element of national greatness;

that they do not count its achievements among the sources of their

national pride; that they do not appreciate its vital importance in

the present day to certain branches of national prosperity; that while

what is excellent receives from them honour and recognition, what is

ignoble and hideous is not detested by them, is, indeed, accepted and

borne with a dull, indifferent acquiescence; that the aesthetic

consciousness is not with them a living force, impelling them towards

the beautiful, and rebelling against the unsightly. We charge that

while a desire to possess works of art, but especially pictures, is

very widespread, it is in a large number, perhaps in a majority of

cases, not the essential quality of art that has attracted the

purchaser to his acquisition; not the emanation of beauty in any one

of its innumerable forms, but something outside and wholly independent

of art. In a word, there is, we charge, among the many in our country,

little consciousness that every product of men's hands claiming to

rank as a work of art, be it lofty in its uses and monumental, or

lowly and dedicated to humble ends, be it a temple or a palace, the

sacred home of prayer or a Sovereign's boasted seat, be it a statue or

a picture, or any implement or utensil bearing the traces of an

artist's thought and the imprint of an artist's finger--there is, I

say, little adequate consciousness that each of these works is a work

of art only on condition that, is a work of art exactly in proportion

as, it contains within itself the precious spark from the Promethean

rod, the divine fire-germ of living beauty; and that the presence of

this divine germ ennobles and lifts into one and the same family every

creation which reveals it; for even as the life-sustaining fire which

streams out in splendour from the sun's molten heart is one with the

fire which lurks for our uses in the grey and homely flint, so the

vital flame of beauty is one and the same, though kindled now to

higher and now to humbler purpose, whether it be manifest in the

creations of a Phidias or of a Michael Angelo, of an Ictinus or of

some nameless builder of a sublime cathedral; in a jewel designed by

Holbein or a lamp from Pompeii, a sword-hilt from Toledo, a caprice in

ivory from Japan or the enamelled frontlet of an Egyptian queen. We

say, further, that the absence of this perception is fraught with

infinite mischief, direct and indirect, to the development of art

among us, tending, as it does, to divorce from it whole classes of

industrial production, and incalculably narrowing the field of the

influence of beauty in our lives. And with the absence of this true

aesthetic instinct, we find not unnaturally the absence of any national

consciousness that the sense of what is beautiful, and the

manifestation of that sense through the language of art, adorn and

exalt a people in the face of the world and before the tribunal of

history; a national consciousness which should become a national

conscience--a sense, that is, of public duty and of a collective

responsibility in regard to this loveliest flower of civilisation.

Well, it is in the belief that the consciousness of which I have

spoken is rather dormant with us than absent, waiting to be aroused

rather than wholly wanting, that the founders of this Association have

initiated the movement which has brought you together, and laid upon

me the ungracious task to which I am now addressing myself--a task I

have accepted in the hope that, at least, some good to others may come

out of the wreck and ruin of any character for courtesy which may

hitherto have been conceded to me.

But let us now look closer into my indictment; and let us, first, for

a moment, and by way of getting at a standard, turn our thoughts to

one or two of those races among which art has reached its highest

level and round whose memory art has shed an inextinguishable

splendour. Let us first consider the Greek race in the day of its

greatest achievements and the most perfect balance of its transcendent

gifts. What is it that impresses us most in the contemplation of the

artistic activity of this race? It is, first, that the stirring

aesthetic instinct, the impulse towards and absolute need of beauty,

was universal with it, and lay, a living force, at the root of its

emotional being; and, secondly, that the Greeks were conscious of this

impulse as of a just source of pride and a sign of their supremacy

among the nations. So saturated were they with it that whatever left

their hands bore its stamp. Whatever of Greek work has been preserved

to us, temple or statue, vessel or implement, is marked with the same

attributes of stately and rhythmic beauty; in all their creations,

from the highest to the lowest, one spirit lives, and whatever be the

rank of each of these creations in the hierarchy of works of art, in

one thing they are even-born and kin--in the spirit of loveliness. And

of the dignity of this artistic instinct, which they regarded as their

birthright, they were, as I have said, proudly conscious. Would you

have an instance of this high consciousness? Here is one. At the end

of the first year of the Peloponnesian war the Athenians having,

according to ancestral custom, decreed a public funeral to those who

had fallen in battle, Pericles, the son of Xanthippus, was chosen by

them to speak the praises of the dead. It is a famous speech, that in

which he obeyed their injunction, and it opens with a lofty eulogy of

the Republic for which the heroes whom they mourned had fallen. In

this magnificent song of praise he enumerates the virtues of the

Athenians; he shows them heroic, wise, just, tolerant, _lovers of

beauty_, philosophers--in all things foremost amongst men. Mark this!

At a celebration of the most moving solemnity--in a breathing space

between two acts of a gigantic international struggle for

hegemony--you have here a great statesman enumerating the titles of

his fellow-citizens to headship among the nations, and placing not at

the end of his panegyric and as an oratorical embellishment, but in

its very heart and centre, these words: "We love the beautiful."

But we may gain, perhaps, a yet more vivid sense of the extent to

which the artistic impulse possessed and filled this people in the

fascinating epitome of Grecian handicraft which is presented to us in

Pompeii, or rather in the Museo Nazionale at Naples. Here you have the

work, not of Athenian Greeks, of the Periclean or of the Alexandrian

age, but the work of provincial Greeks inhabiting a watering-place of

no very great importance, in the first century of our era; a period as

far removed from the days of the Parthenon sculptures as we are from

the days of the Canterbury Tales. And what a display it is! How full

of interest! Here we are admitted into the most intimate privacy of a

multitude of Pompeian houses--the kitchens, the pantries, the cellars

of the contemporaries of the Plinies have here no secret for us;

indeed, for aught we know, more than one of those dinners of which

that delicate _bon vivant_, the nephew of the naturalist, was so

appreciative a judge may have been cooked in one of these very ranges,

one of these ladles may have skimmed his soup, his quails may have

been roasted on yonder spit. Nothing is wanting that goes to make the

complete armament of a kitchen--stoves, cauldrons, vessels of every

kind, lamps of every shape, forks, spoons, ladles of every dimension.

And in all this mass of manifold material perhaps the most marked

characteristic is not the high level of executive merit it reveals,

high as that level is, but the amazing wealth of _idea_, the

marvellous intellectual activity brought to bear on what we now call

objects of industrial art--whatever that may mean--in this outpost of

Greek civilisation. These accumulated appliances of the kitchen and

the pantry form a museum of art--a museum of art of inexhaustible

fascination; and not only does this vast collection of necessary

things contain nothing ugly, but it displays, as I have just said, an

amazing wealth of ideas; each bowl, each lamp, each spoon almost, is

an individual work of art, a separate and distinct conception, a

special birth of the joy of creation in a genuine artist. But, above

all, let us bear this fact in mind--_the absence there of any ugly

thing_; for the instinct of what is beautiful not only delights and

seeks to express itself in lovely work, but forbids and banishes

whatever is graceless and unsightly.

As next to the Greeks, and as almost their equals in this craving for

the beautiful, the Italians will occur to you. And here it may be well

to note, in a parenthesis, that a vivid sense of abstract beauty in

line and form does not necessarily carry with it a keen perception of

shapliness in the human frame. This curious fact we see strikingly

illustrated in a race which possesses the artistic instinct in certain

of its developments in a greater degree than any other in our time--I

mean the Japanese. With them the sense of decorative distribution and

of subtle loveliness of form and colour is absolutely universal, and

expresses itself in every most ordinary appliance of daily life,

overflowing, indeed, into every toy or trifle that may amuse an idle

moment; and yet majesty and beauty in the human form are as absent

from their works as from their persons. Be this said without prejudice

to the fact that in the movement imparted by them to the figures in

their designs there is often much of daintiness and dignity, the

outcome of that keen perception of beauty of line in the abstract

which we have seen to be dominant in them. I need not follow further

this, I think, interesting train of thought, but the digression seemed

to me useful, not as illustrating the fact that beauty is not to be

regarded only in connection with the human form, which is a mere

truism, but as showing that the abstract sense of it, in certain

aspects, may possess and penetrate a race in which the perception of

comeliness in the human body is almost entirely absent; and I meet by

it also, in anticipation, certain objections that may suggest

themselves to you in connection with the Italians, as far, at least,

as the Tuscans are concerned; for in them, too, we find occasionally,

side by side with an unsurpassed sense of the expressiveness of line

and form, a defective perception of beauty in the human

frame--witness the ungainly angularities, for instance, of a

Verrocchio, a Gozzoli, a Signorelli.

The thirst for the artistically delightful was the mark in Italy of no

particular class; it was common to all, high and low, to the Pontiff

on his throne, to the trader behind his counter, to the people in the

market-place. And here, again, observe that this desire was not alone

for the adornment of walls and public places with painting and

statuary--though every wall in every church or public building was, in

fact, enriched by the hand of painters and of sculptors--but it

embraced every humbler form of artistic expression, and was, indeed,

especially directed to one which has in our time touched, here and

there, a melancholy depth--the craft of the goldsmith. I said "humbler

form" of art for lack of a better word; for a craft cannot fitly be

called humble which has occupied and delighted men of the very highest

gifts. Did not the mind that conceived the "Perseus" of the Loggia dei

Lanzi pour out some of its richest fancies in a jewelled salt-cellar

for the table of a Pope? Did not the sublimest genius that ever shone

upon the world of art receive its first guidance in the workshop of a

jeweller--a jeweller who was himself a painter also of high renown?

For was it not that painter-goldsmith whose hands adorned with noble

frescoes the famous choir of Sta. Maria Novella?

Now, to a cultured audience such as that which I am here addressing,

these facts are familiar and trite, so trite and so familiar that it

may, perhaps, be doubted whether their true significance has ever

stood quite clearly before your minds, and whether you have fully

grasped the solidarity of the arts--if I may use an outlandish

expression--which at one time prevailed. Let us in imagination

transfer the last quoted fact into contemporary life. Let us suppose

that the municipality of a great English city, proud of its annals and

of its culture, determined to decorate with paintings in some

comprehensive manner the walls of a great public building; and

suppose, further, that an artist, admittedly of the first rank, were

to answer to its call from the workshop--and I say advisedly from the

workshop, for it is there, and not on an armchair in the office, that

the head of the house would have been found in the old day--suppose, I

say, that such an artist came forth from some great firm of

jewellers, in Bond Street for instance, we should have, on the

artistic side, the exact parallel of the case of the Dominicans of

Sta. Maria Nuova and Domenico, the son of Thomas the garland-maker of

Florence. Meanwhile, striking as is this instance of the unity of art

in long past days, it is but just to add, and I rejoice to be able

here to do so, that signs are not wanting on the side of our own

artists of a strong tendency towards a return to closer bonds between

its various branches, in which direction, indeed, a movement has been

for some years increasingly marked and practical; and it is with a

glad outlook into the future, and with a sense of breathing a wider

air, that I place by the side of the cases which I have just

mentioned--cases which were, in their time, of natural and frequent

occurrence--one which is of yesterday. The chief magistrate of an

important provincial centre of English industry, the Mayor of Preston,

wears at this time a chain of office which is a beautiful work of art,

and this chain was not only designed but wrought throughout by the

sculptor who modelled the stately commemorative statue of the Queen

that adorns the County Square of Winchester, the artist who presides

over the section of sculpture in this Congress, my young friend and

colleague, Mr. Alfred Gilbert.

I have pointed to the Italians and the Greeks as culminating instances

of people filled with a love of beauty and achieving the highest

excellence in its embodiment, and I have named the Japanese as

manifesting the aesthetic temper in a high degree of sensitiveness, but

within certain limitations. It is not necessary to remind you that I

might extend this list, if with some qualification, and that the same

lesson--the lesson that the nations which love beauty seek it in the

humblest as well as the highest things--is taught us by others than

those I have mentioned. Whosoever, for instance, has wondered at the

work of Persian looms, or felt the fascination of the manuscripts

illuminated by the artists of Iran, or noted the unfailing grace of

subtle line revealed in their metal-work, will feel that for this race

also the merit of a work of art did not reside in its category, but in

the degree to which it manifested the spirit which alone could ennoble

it, the spirit of beauty. And if, further, this dominant instinct of

the beautiful is not in our own time found in any Western race in its

fullest force, and among one Eastern people, with, as we saw,

important limitations, there is yet one modern nation in our own

hemisphere in which the thirst for artistic excellence is widespread

to a degree unknown elsewhere in Europe; a people with whom the sense

of the dignity of artistic achievement, as an element of national

greatness, an element which it is the duty of its Government to foster

and to further, and to proclaim before the world, is keen and

constant; I mean, of course, your brilliant neighbours, the people of

France. Here, then, are standards to which we may appeal to see how

far, all allowance being made for many signs of improvement in things

concerning art, we yet fall short, as a nation, of the ideal which we

should have before us.

Let me now revert to my indictment. I said that the sense of abstract

beauty with the mass of our countrymen--and once again I must be

understood not to ignore, but only to leave out of view for the

moment, the considerable and growing number of those in whom this

sense is astir and active--with the mass, I repeat, of our countrymen,

the perception of beauty is blunt, and the desire for it sluggish and

superficial; with them the beautiful is, indeed, sometimes a source of

vague, half-conscious satisfaction, especially when it appeals to them

conjointly with other incitements to emotion, but their perception of

it is passive, and does not pass into active desire; it accepts, it

does not demand; it is uncertain of itself, for it lacks definiteness

of intuition, and having no definite intuition, it is necessarily

uncritical. This weakness, among the many, of the critical faculty in

aesthetic matters, and the curious bluntness of their perceptions, is

seen not in connection with the plastic arts only, but over the whole

artistic field, in the domains of music and the drama, as in that of

painting and sculpture. Who, for instance, where a body of English men

and women has been gathered together in a concert room, has not, at

one moment, heard a storm of applause go up to meet some matchless

executant of noble music, and then, five minutes later, watched in

wonder and dismay the same crepitation of eager hands proclaiming an

equal satisfaction with the efforts of some feeblest servant of

Apollo? Or have you not often, in your theatres, blushed to see the

lowest buffoonery received with exuberant delight by an audience--and

a cultivated audience--which had just before not seemed insensible to

some fine piece of histrionic art? And what could proclaim the lack of

true, spontaneous instinct in more startling fashion than the

notorious fact that the most thrilling touch of pathos in the

performance of an actor reputed to be comic will be infallibly

received with a titter by a British audience, which has paid to laugh

and come to the play focussed for the funny?

Now this little glimpse into the attitude of the public in regard to

other arts than ours has its bearing upon our present subject. This

same feebleness of the critical sense which arises out of the

indefiniteness--to say the best of it--of the inner standard of

artistic excellence, is not unnaturally accompanied by and fosters an

apathy in regard to that excellence, and an attitude of callous

acquiescence in the unsightly, which are inexpressibly mischievous;

for you cannot too strongly print this on your minds, that what you

demand that will you get, and according to what you accept will be

that which is provided for you. Let an atmosphere be generated among

you in which the appetite for what is beautiful and noble is whetted

and becomes imperative, in which whatever is ugly and vulgar shall be

repugnant and hateful to the beholder, and assuredly what is beautiful

and noble will, in due time, be furnished to you, and in steadily

increasing excellence, satisfying your taste, and at the same time

further purifying it and heightening its sensitiveness.

The enemy, then, is this indifference in the presence of the ugly; it

is only by the victory over this apathy that you can rise to better

things, it is only by the rooting out and extermination of what is

ugly that you can bring about conditions in which beauty shall be a

power among you. Now, this callous tolerance of the unsightly,

although it is, I am grateful to think, yielding by degrees to a

healthier feeling, is still strangely prevalent and widespread among

us, and its deadening influence is seen in the too frequent absence of

any articulate protest of public opinion against the disfigurement of

our towns.

Let me give you an instance of this indifference. Our country is happy

in possessing a collection of paintings by the old masters of

exceptional interest and splendour, a collection which, thanks to the

taste and highly trained discernment of its present accomplished

head, Sir Frederick Burton, is, with what speed the short-sighted

policy of successive Governments permits, rising steadily to a

foremost place among the famous galleries in the world. Some years

ago, the building destined to receive it being found no longer

adequate, it became necessary to provide, by some means, ampler space

for the display of the national treasure. It was resolved that another

edifice should take the place of that designed by Wilkins, an edifice

which, be it said in passing, has been made the butt of curiously

unmerited ridicule in the world of connoisseurship, and which, apart

from certain very obvious blemishes, it has always seemed to me to be

much easier to deride than to better. A competition was opened, and

designs were demanded for a spacious building, equal to present and

future needs, and worthy of the magnificence of the collection it was

to house. It is hardly necessary to say that we have here no concern

whatever with the controversy which arose over these designs. My

concern is with its final outcome, which is this: the original

building has remained unaltered as to its exterior; but on the rear of

one of its flanks loom now into view, first, an appendage in an

entirely different style of architecture, and further on, an

excrescence of no style of architecture at all; the one an Italian

tower, the other a flat cone of glass, surmounted by a ventilator--a

structure of the warehouse type--the whole resulting in a jarring

jumble and an aspect of chaotic incongruity which would be ludicrous

if it were not distressing; and we enjoy, further, this instructive

phenomenon that a public opinion which sensitively shrank from the

blemishes of the original edifice has accepted its retention, with all

those blemishes unmodified, _plus_ an appendage which adds to the

whole the worst almost of all sins architectural--a lack of unity of

conception. Now, I have never to my knowledge heard one single word of

articulate public reprobation levelled at this now irremediable blot

on what we complacently call the finest site in the world; and yet I

cannot find it in me to believe that many have not, like myself,

groaned in spirit before a spectacle so deplorable--a spectacle which,

indeed, is only conceivable within these islands. I think that a good

deal is summed up in this episode, and I need not, for my present

purpose, seek another in the domain of architecture.

In regard to sculpture, the public apathy and blindness are yet more

depressing and complete, and illustrate the deadness of the many to

the perception of the essential qualities of art. To the overwhelming

majority of Englishmen sculpture means simply the perpetuation of the

form of Mr. So-and-So in marble, bronze, or terra-cotta--this, and no

more. That marble, bronze, or terra-cotta may, under cunning hands,

become vehicles, for those who have eyes to see, of emotions, aesthetic

and poetic, not less lofty than those which are stirred in us by the

verse of a Dante or a Milton, or by strains of noblest music, of this

the consciousness is for practical purposes non-existent. For

sculpture, for an art through which alone the name of Greece would

have been famous for all time, there is, outside portraiture, even

now, under conditions admittedly improved, little or no field in this

country. Portrait-statues galore bristle, indeed, within our streets;

but the notion of setting up in public places pieces of monumental

sculpture solely for adornment and dignity, or of monuments that shall

remind us of deeds in which our country or our town has earned fame

and deserved gratitude, and incite the young to emulation of those

deeds, or that shall be the allegorised expression of any great

idea--and yet our race has had great ideas, and clothed them in deeds

as great--hardly ever, it would seem, enters the heads of a people

whose aspirations are surely not less noble or less high than those of

other nations. Nay, even a monument commemorative of the great public

services of some individual man which shall be a monument _to_ him

rather than exclusively an image _of_ him, a monument of which his

effigy shall form a part, but of which the main feature shall be the

embodiment or illustration, in forms of art, of the virtues that have

earned for him the homage of his countrymen--even this is suggested in

vain.

And if we are tolerant of treason against fitness in architecture,

what shall we say of our tolerance in regard to its sculptural

adornments? What shall we say of the complacent acceptance, above and

about windows and doorways in clubs, offices, barracks, and the like

buildings, of carven wonders such as no other civilised community

would accept in silence? Though I fear I must here, with all

deference, add that my brethren, the architects, who suffer their

work to be so defaced, are themselves not wholly blameless; and

indeed, it is a truth in the assertion of which the most enlightened

workmen in every branch of art will stand by me, that among ourselves

also the sense of the kinship of the arts is too often a mere theory,

received, no doubt, with respect as an abstract proposition, but not

perceptibly colouring our practical activity.

In sculpture the inertness of demand and tolerance of inferior supply

is due mainly to the want, to which I have alluded, of a sense of and

a joy in the purely aesthetic quality in artistic production, an

insensibility to the power inherent in form, by its own virtue, of

producing the emotion and exciting the imagination, a power on which

the dignity of this pure and severe art does or should mainly rest.

In the appreciation of painting, which on various grounds appeals as

an art to a far wider public than either architecture or sculpture,

the same shortcomings are evident, though in a less degree, and with

less mischievous results; for the witchery of colour, at least, is

felt and appreciated, more or less consciously, by a very large number

of people. The inadequacy of the general standard of artistic insight

is here seen in the fact that to a great multitude of persons the

attractiveness of a painted canvas is in proportion to the amount of

literary element which it carries, not in proportion to the degree of

aesthetic emotion stirred by it, or of appeal to the imagination

contained in it--persons, those, who regard a picture as a compound of

anecdote and mechanism, and with whom looking at it would seem to mean

only another form of reading. Time after time, in listening to the

description--the enthusiastic description--of a picture, we become

aware that the points emphasised by the speaker are such as did not

specially call for treatment in art at all, were often not fitted for

expression through form or colour, their natural vehicle being not

paint but ink, which is the proper and appointed conveyor of abstract

thoughts and concrete narrative. I have heard pictures extolled as

works of genius simply because they expressed, not because they nobly

clothed in forms of art, ideas not beyond the reach of the average

penny-a-liner.

Now I know that in what I am here saying I skirt the burning ground

of controversy long and hotly waged--skirt it only, for that

controversy touches but the borders of my subject, and I shall of

course not pursue it here. I will, nevertheless, to avoid

misrepresentation in either sense, state, as briefly as I can, one or

two definite principles on which it appears to me safe to stand. It is

given to form and to colour to elicit in men powerful and exquisite

emotions, emotions covering a very wide range of sensibility, and to

which they alone have the key. The chords within us which vibrate to

these emotions are the instrument on which art plays, and a work of

art deserves that name, as I have said, in proportion as, and in the

extent to which, it sets those chords in motion. The power and

solemnity of a simple appeal of form as such is seen in a noble

building of imposing mass and stately outlines. When, however, form in

arts is connected with the human frame, and when combinations of human

forms are among the materials with which a beautiful design is built

up, then another element is added to the sum of our sensations--an

element due to the absorbing interest of man in all that belongs to

his kind; and the emotion primarily produced by the force of a purely

aesthetic appeal is enhanced and heightened by elements of a more

intimate and universal order, one more nearly touching our affections,

but not, therefore, necessarily of a higher order. Thus the episode,

for instance, of Paolo and Francesca, clothed in the rare, grave

melody of Dante's verse, entrances us with its pathos; but our

emotion, intensely human as it is, is not therefore of a higher kind

than that which holds us as we listen to sounds sublimely woven by

some great musician; nor are the impressions received in watching from

the floor of some great Christian church the gathering of the gloom

within a dome's receding curves of less noble order than those aroused

by a supreme work of sculpture or a painting--by, say, the "Notte" of

Michael Angelo or the "Monna Lisa" of Lionardo; and yet in both of

these last the chord of human sympathy is strongly swept, though in

different ways--in the "Notte" by the poetic and pathetic

suggestiveness of certain forms and movements of the human body; in

the "Monna Lisa" by a more definitely personal charm and feminine

sorcery which haunts about her shadowy eyes, and the subtle curling of

her mysterious lips.

I say, then, that in a work of art the elements of emotion based on

human sympathies are not of a loftier order than those arising out of

abstract sublimity or loveliness of form, but that the presence of

these elements in such a work, while not raising it as an artistic

creation, does impart to it an added power of appeal, and that,

therefore, a work in which these elements are combined will be with

the great majority of mankind a more potent engine of delight than one

which should rest exclusively on abstract qualities. And it follows,

therefore, that while a work of art earns its title to that name on

condition only, once again I say, of the purely aesthetic element being

present in it, and will rank as such in exact proportion to the degree

in which this element prevails in it; and while, further, this

element, carrying with it, as it does, imaginative suggestiveness of

the highest order and of the widest scope, is all-sufficient in those

branches of art in which the human form plays no part, the element

which is inseparable in a work of art from the introduction of human

beings is one which it is not possible for us to ignore in our

appreciation of that work as a source and vehicle of emotion.

Every attempt at succinct exposition of a complex question risks being

unsatisfactory and obscure, and I am painfully alive to the inadequacy

of what I have just said. I trust, however, that I have conveyed my

meaning, if roughly, yet sufficiently to shield me from misconception

in regard to the special emphasis I am laying on the importance of a

proper estimation of the essentially aesthetic quality in a work of

art, an importance which I urge upon you, not so much here on account

of the effect its absence may have exercised on the development of

painting, as on account of the significant fact that its want--the

lack of a perception that certain qualities are the very essence of

art, and link into one great family every work of the hands of men in

which they are found--has led with us to a disastrous divorce between

what is considered as art proper and the arts which are called

industrial. I say advisedly "disastrous," for the lowering among us in

the present day of the status of forms of art, in the service of which

such men as Albert Duerer, for example, and Holbein (men, by-the-by, of

kindred blood with ourselves), Cellini and Lionardo, were glad to

labour and create--and that not as a concession, but in the joyful

exercise of their fullest powers--is one of its results, and carrying

with it, as is natural, a lowering of standard in these arts, has

generated the marvellous notion, not expressed in words, but too

largely acted on, that art in any serious sense is not to be looked

for at all in certain places--where, in truth, alas! neither is it

often found--and led to the holding aloof to a great extent, until

comparatively recent years, of much of the best talent from very

delightful forms of artistic creation; and this notion has led further

to the virtual banishment from certain provinces of designing of the

human figure, or where it is not banished, to its defacement, too

often, in the hands of the untrained or the inept.

We are to a wonderful degree creatures of habit, our thoughts are

prone to run--or shall I say rather to stagnate?--within grooves; and

if we are a people of many and great endowments, a swift and free play

of thought is, as we have been forcibly told by a voice that we shall

hear no more, and can ill miss, not a distinguishing feature among us.

Is it not an amazing thing, for example, that human shapes, which in

clay or plaster would be ignominiously excluded from a second-rate

exhibition, are not only accepted, but displayed with a chuckle of

elated pride, when cast in the precious metals, flanked, say by a

palm-tree, borne aloft on a rock, and presented in the guise of a

piece of ornamental plate? But is this even rare? Is it not of

constant occurrence? Do you demur? Well, let me ask you a plain

question: Of all the nymphs and goddesses, the satyrs, and the

tritons, that disport themselves on the ceremonial goldsmithery of the

United Kingdom, how many if cast in vulgar plaster, and not in

glittering gold, would pass muster before the jury of an average

exhibition? And if few, I ask why is this so? In the name of

Cellini--nay, in the name of common sense, why? And is it on account

of the low ebb of figure modelling for decorative purposes that on our

carved furniture--what we mysteriously describe as "art

furniture"--the human form is hardly ever seen? Then why is the best

talent not enlisted in this work? Certain it is that the absence of

living forms imparts to much of the furniture now made in England,

unsurpassed as it is in regard to delicacy and finish of handiwork,

and frequently elegant in design, a certain look of slightness and

flimsy, faddy dilettantism which prevent it from taking that rank in

the province of applied art in which it might and should aspire.

But I have, I fear, already unduly drawn upon your patience, and I

must bring to a close these too disjointed prefatory words, leaving it

to the accomplished gentlemen who head the various sections of this

Congress to amplify and enrich as they will out of the wide fund of

their knowledge and experience the bald outline I have sketched before

you. They, in their turn, taking up, no doubt, our common parable,

will emphasise and press on you the fact that by cultivating its

aesthetic sense in a more comprehensive and harmoniously consistent

spirit than hitherto, and with a clearer vision of the nature of all

art and a more catholic receptiveness as to its charms, and by

stimulating in a right direction the abundant productive energy which

lies to its hand, this nation will not only be adding infinitely to

the adornment and dignity of its public and private life, not only

providing for itself an increasing and manifold source of delight and

renovating repose, mental and spiritual, in a day in which such

resting and regenerating elements are more and more called for by our

jaded nervous systems, and more and more needed for our intellectual

equilibrium, but will be dealing with a subject which is every day

becoming more and more important in relation to certain sides of the

waning material prosperity of the country. For, as they will no doubt

remind you, the industrial competition between this and other

countries--a competition, keen and eager, which means to certain

industries almost a race for life--runs, in many cases, no longer

exclusively or mainly on the lines of excellence of material and

solidity of workmanship, but greatly nowadays on the lines of artistic

charm and beauty of design. This, to you, vital fact is one which they

will, I am convinced, not suffer to fall into the background.

One last word in anticipation of certain objections not unlikely to be

raised against an assumption which may seem to be implied in the

existence of our Association--the assumption that the evils and

shortcomings of which I have spoken with such unsparing frankness can

be removed or remedied by the gathering together of a number of

persons to listen to a series of addresses. The causes of these evils,

we may be told, and their antidote, are not on the surface of things,

but rest on conditions of a complex character, and are fundamental.

"Who," I hear some one say, "is this dreamer of dreams, who hopes to

cure by talking such deep-seated evils? Who is this shallow and

unphilosophical thinker who does not see that the same primary

conditions are operative in making the purchaser indifferent what he

gets and the supplier indifferent to what he produces, and who

attributes the circumstance that good work is not generally produced

in certain forms of industry to the lack of demand, rather than to the

deeper-lying fact that suppliers and demanders are of the same stock,

having the same congenital failings; and satisfied with the same

standards?" My answer to this imaginary, or I ought, perhaps, to say

this foreseen objector would be, first, this--that I am not the

visionary for whom he takes me, and that I do not believe in the

efficacy of words either directly to remedy the state of things I have

been deploring, or to create a love of art and a delicate

sensitiveness to its charms in those to whom the responsive chords

have been refused; neither is the eloquence, trumpet-toned and

triumphant, conceivable by me before which the walls of the Jericho of

the Philistine shall crumble in abrupt ruin to the ground; least of

all do I believe in sudden developments of the human intellect. But it

has nevertheless seemed to me, as it has seemed to the framers of this

Association, that words, if they be judicious and sincere, may rally

and strengthen and prompt to action instincts and impulses which only

await a signal to assert themselves--instincts, sometimes, perhaps,

not fully conscious of themselves--and that a favouring temperature

may be thus created within which, by the operation of natural laws, in

due time, but by no stroke of the wand, a new and better order may

arise. Neither, indeed, do I ignore the force of my critic's

contention that the causes of mischief lie deep, and are not to be

touched by surface-tinkering, if they are to be removed at all;

although I demur to his pessimistic estimate of them as a final bar to

our hopes. It is true that certain specific attributes are, or seem to

be, feeble in our race; it is true, too true--I have it on the

repeated assurance of apologetic vendors--that with us the ugliest

objects--often, oh! how ugly--have the largest market; nevertheless,

the amount of good artistic production in connection with industry--I

purposely speak of this first--has grown within the last score or so

of years, and through the initiative, mind, of a mere handful of

enthusiastic and highly gifted men in an extraordinary degree; and in

a proportionate degree has the number increased, also, of those who

accept and desire it; and this growth has been steady and organic, and

is of the best augury. Now, the increase in the number of those who

desire good work, and the concurrent development of their critical

sensitiveness in matters of taste, stimulate, in their turn, the

energies, and sustain the upward efforts, of the producers, and thus,

through action and reaction, a condition of things should be slowly

but surely evolved which shall more nearly approach that general level

of artistic culture and artistic production so anxiously looked for by

us all. It is in the hastening of this desired result that we invoke,

not your sympathy alone, but your patient, strenuous aid. And if I am

further asked how, in my view, this association can best contribute to

the furtherance of our common end, I would say, not merely by seeking

to fan and kindle a more general interest in the things of art, but

mainly by seeking to awaken a clearer perception of the true _essence_

of a work of art, by insisting on the fundamental identity of all

manifestations of the artistic creative impulse through whatever

channels it may express itself, and by setting forth and establishing

this pregnant truth--that whatever degrees of dignity and rank may

exist in the scale of artistic productions, according to the order of

emotion to which they minister in us, they are in one kind; for the

various and many channels through which beauty is made manifest to us

in art are but the numerous several stops of one and the same divine

instrument.

And if in what I have said I have laid especial stress on that branch

of art which is called industrial, it is not solely to develop this

cardinal doctrine, neither only because of the pressing, practical,

paramount national importance of this part of our subject, but also

because I, in truth, believe that it is in a great measure through

these very forms of art that the improvement, to which I look with a

steadfast faith, will be mainly operated. The almost unlimited area

which they cover in itself constitutes them an engine of immense

power, and I believe that through them, if at all, the sense of beauty

and the love for it will be stimulated in, and communicated to,

constantly increasing numbers. I believe that the day may come when

public opinion, thus slowly but definitely moulded, will make itself

loudly heard; when men will insist that what they do for the gracing

and adornment of their homes shall be done also for the public

buildings and thoroughfares of their cities; when they will remind

their municipal representatives and the controllers of their guilds of

what similar bodies of men did for the cities of Italy in the days of

their proud prosperity in trade, and will ask why the walls of our

public edifices are blank and silent, instead of being adorned and

made delightful with things beautiful to see, or eloquent of whatever

great deeds or good work enrich and honour the annals of the places of

our birth. And lastly, I believe that an art desired by the whole

people and fostered by the whole people's desire would reflect--for

such art must be sincere--some of the best qualities of our race; its

love of Nature, its imaginative force, its healthfulness, its strong

simplicity.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, my task is ended. My duties to-night

were purely prefatory; my words are but the prologue of the

proceedings which begin to-morrow--a prologue which I undertook to

speak less from any faith in its possible efficacy than in the belief

that the first word spoken at such a time should be heard from the

lips of one to whom, from the nature of the office he is privileged to

fill, as well as from the whole bent of his mind, everything that

concerns art, from end to end of its enchanting field, must be, and

is, a source of deep, of constant, and engrossing interest. The

curtain is now raised, the stage is spread before you, and I step

aside to make room for others, leaving with you the expression of my

fervent wish that the hopes which have brought us together in this

place may not have been entertained in vain.

LORD LEIGHTON'S HOUSE

AND WHAT IT CONTAINS[89]

PREFACE TO CATALOGUE

Two miles and a quarter from Hyde Park Corner, removed but a few steps

from the main thoroughfare between London and Hammersmith, and running

parallel to it, is Holland Park Road, facing which stands Lord

Leighton's House. "I live in a mews," he used to say. This meant more

than a figure of speech merely, though the "mews" in question is very

different from a London street mews. Low, odd-shaped, irregular

buildings, formerly stables (a few are still used as such), were in

Lord Leighton's life converted into studios by artists who wished to

cluster around the President of the Royal Academy. These stand in old

gardens and are studded at intervals along the road, bordered by trees

branching across it, and taking away all idea of its being a London

street. Screened by a hedge of closely-cut lime-trees, the Leighton

House stands back but a few yards from the pavement. Through a porch

and a small outer hall the House is entered. Monsieur Choisy, the

distinguished French architect, in his letter to the _Times_ of April

the 27th, 1896, written with the view of trying to induce the English

nation to rise to the value of preserving this House as a national

treasure, writes as follows:--

"Allow me also to point out the original beauty of the house where so

many masterpieces are grouped. The French public have been enabled to

admire this house through the excellent article of my friend and

fellow-member of the R.I.B.A., Mr. Charles Lucas.

"Nowhere have I found in an architectural monument a happier gradation

of effects nor a more complete knowledge of the play of light.

"The entrance to the house is by a plain hall that leads to a 'patio,'

lit from the sky, where enamels shine brilliantly in the full light;

from this 'patio' one passes into a twilight corridor, where enamel

and gold detach themselves from an architectural ground of a richness

somewhat severe; it is a transition which prepares the eye for a jewel

of Oriental art, where the most brilliant productions of the Persian

potter are set in an architectural frame inspired by Arab art, but

treated freely; the harmony is so perfect that one asks oneself if the

architecture has been conceived for the enamels or the enamels for the

hall. This gradation, perhaps unique in contemporary architecture, was

Leighton's idea; and the illustrious painter found in his old friend

Mr. G. Aitchison, who built his house, a worthy interpreter of his

fine conception. This hall where colour is triumphant, was dear to

Leighton, and even forms the background to some of his pictures.

Towards the end of his life he still meant to embellish it by

substituting marble for that small part that was only painted. The

generous employment of his fortune alone prevented him from realising

his intention.

"England has at all times given the example of honouring great men;

she will, I am sure, find the means of preserving for art a monument

of which she had such reason to be proud."

As is now well known, Lord Leighton's executrixes, his two sisters,

have assigned the lease of the property, which has sixty-six years yet

to run, to three gentlemen who are members of the committee formed to

preserve it for the use and education of the public, in memory of Lord

Leighton, and the committee are now tenants at will of the

proprietors. Works by Lord Leighton have been collected and placed in

the studios and other rooms of the House. A large collection of his

drawings and sketches and a few finished paintings have been secured

through the generosity of his sisters, Mrs. Sutherland Orr, Mrs.

Matthews, and his personal friends, the list of these being headed by

the Prince of Wales. This collection of original works numbers 1114,

594 being now framed and hung on the walls. The collection also

contains 28 proof engravings from Lord Leighton's principal pictures,

presented by those who own the copyrights, _i.e._ Mrs. James Watney

(who has also given an original drawing), the Fine Arts Society, the

Berlin Photographic Company, Messrs. Agnew, Graves, Colnaghi, and

Tooth. There are also 112 photographic reproductions by Mr. F. Hollyer

and Messrs. Dixon, these, with a few exceptions, having been taken for

Lord Leighton in his studio. The greater number of these photographs

were given to the House by Mr. Wilfred Meynell, Mr. F. Hollyer, and

Messrs. Dixon; the remainder by Lord Davey, Sir Henry Acland, Mr. A.

Henderson, Mr. Philipson, Mr. A.G. Temple, and Mr. George Smith. The

reproductions of completed pictures have been hung on the walls

together with the sketches executed for them, in order that the

student may realise how Leighton developed the designs he made into

finished pictures. When funds permit, the 520 remaining drawings and

sketches will be framed, and it is the desire of the committee that,

though the Leighton House should always remain the chief centre of the

collections, groups of sketches should be lent to exhibitors in the

provinces and in the poorer parts of London. In the middle of the

centre hall is now placed a reproduction presented by Mr. Brock, R.A.,

of the bust of Lord Leighton, executed by his sculptor friend--that

perfect likeness in bronze of the President placed among the Diploma

works in Burlington House. Surrounding this reproduction and lining

the walls and staircase are plaques of Oriental designs, pictures in

enamel, framed in by a background of Mr. William De Morgan's beautiful

blue tiles.[90] The same treatment is continued through the "twilight

corridor" leading to the great casket of treasures known as the Arab

Hall. In the summer of 1899 the Society of the Library Association was

received at the Leighton House, and at the meeting which preceded the

conversazione, Lord Crawford, President of the Association, ended the

speech he made on the merits and rare gifts of his friend, Lord

Leighton, by a reference to the unique value of this casket of

treasures. "We often," he said, "see Persian tiles in England. They

are chiefly made in England, but they are bought in Persia! A genuine

Persian tile is a very rare thing. When you meet it, cherish it!" In

this Arab Hall hundreds of these "rare" things are collected, each

individually of a quality of uncommon beauty and almost priceless,

owing to the fact that large spaces on the walls are filled with these

gorgeous tiles, fitted together as originally designed and intended by

the Persian artists who invented them. Travellers who went to the East

when there was still a chance of buying genuine Persian tiles know how

it came about that these could sometimes be procured. The owners of

the houses on the walls of which they were placed would become

impoverished and were easily induced to sell a single tile to a

traveller as a specimen. When the money paid for it was spent and more

was wanted, if a second traveller came by another single tile was

sold. The first purchaser might have been an Englishman, the second a

Frenchman, the third a German, and so on. In this way the several

tiles making one design got hopelessly dispersed. Lord Leighton, aided

by his friend, Sir C. Purdon Clarke, the Director of the Art Museum,

South Kensington, was extraordinarily lucky in obtaining large plaques

of tiles intact. "During his visits to Rhodes, to Cairo, and to

Damascus," writes Mr. George Aitchison, R.A., "he made a lovely

collection of Saracenic tiles, and had, besides, bought two

inscriptions, one of the most delicate colour and beautiful design,

and the other about sixteen feet long and strikingly magnificent;

besides getting some panels, stained glass, and lattice-work from

Damascus afterwards; these were fitted into an Arab Hall in 1877." The

enamelled tiles made the keynote of this beautiful creation, the Arab

Hall, which, to repeat Mr. Choisy's words, forms a harmony "so perfect

that one asks oneself if the architecture has been conceived for the

enamels or the enamels for the Hall." Round three sides (the fourth

being filled by the large inscription) runs a frieze in mosaics, the

designs of which are among the most beautiful of those invented by our

great English decorator, Walter Crane. Sir C. Purdon Clarke has

designated this creation of Lord Leighton's, in which he was so ably

assisted by his friend, Mr. George Aitchison, R.A., President of the

Royal Society of British Architects, and in which is to be traced that

generous delight which Leighton took in all that was good in the art

of his contemporaries, as "the most beautiful structure which has been

raised since the sixteenth century." It would, alone, make the

preservation of the House as an effective medium for education in the

beautiful a necessity to any truly art-loving people.

To turn to the collection of Leighton's own paintings, the most

complete work secured is the "Clytemnestra from the battlements of

Argos watches for the beacon fires that are to announce the return of

Agamemnon" (No. 212).

Mr. G.F. Watts, R.A., writes: "I am more pleased than I can say that

the picture is possible. It is very fine, a grand pictorial

realisation of Greek sculpture and Greek poetry, very noble in form

and expression, and singularly fine in the arrangement of drapery.

Certainly a better example of Leighton at his happiest could not, I

think, be found. It is also _especially_ Leighton."

Mr. Watts has himself presented a finished painting by Leighton--a

half-length figure of a man, which is an exquisite piece of work and

given to Mr. Watts many years ago by the artist. When presenting it to

the House Mr. Watts wrote that it was one of his possessions which he

prized the most. Though the collection in Lord Leighton's House is

mainly formed of his drawings, the few finished paintings and the

several oil sketches of landscape belonging to it are sufficient to

show how exquisite was his native sense of colour. The colour in

"Clytemnestra" (No. 212) is both true to nature as a presentiment of

the moonlight effect and to the dramatic feeling of the subject. The

study (No. 110), for one of the heads in "Summer Moon" (No. 272),

presented by Mr. Alfred Waterhouse, R.A., and executed actually by the

light of the moon in Rome, is notably fine in texture and gives us the

origin of that curiously happy note of colour in "Clytemnestra"--the

bar of dull red cooled by moonlight. The model wore a scarlet ribbon,

or might be, a row of coral beads round her neck while sitting to

Leighton for the study, and this evidently gave him what he wanted,

and suggested, when he was painting the "Clytemnestra" two years

later, the contrast to the greys and blues in the red bar in this

picture. Mr. A.G. Temple in his valuable work, "The Art of Painting in

the Queen's Reign," alludes to this effect: "A picture _low in key_,

but curiously strengthened by the massive bar of dark red that runs

from the bottom to the top of the picture." Very fine colour and

texture is seen in the sketch for a design of "St. George and the

Dragon" made for some arched space (No. 115), and also in the small

oil sketch for "Golden Hours" (No. 5-A), the study for the background

of the picture "David" (No. 111), "A pool, Findhorn River" (No. 120),

"Rocks in the Findhorn" (No. 123a), "Kynance Cove" (No. 125), "A View

in Spain" (No. 122), "Simaetha, the Sorceress" (No. 124), "Bay of

Naples by Moonlight" (No. 112), are rapid though eminently careful

sketches which prove, perhaps even more convincingly than

highly-finished works, that in the very grain of his native art

instinct was Leighton's delight in beauty of colour. In the sketch

(No. 109), "The Entrance of a House," is one of many examples among

his paintings which show what a master he was in the art of painting

white; really true white, such as we see in marble and whitewashed

walls in Greece, Sicily, and Italy. Surely no artist has ever painted

more truly or poetically the quality of Southern light as it falls on

white walls and columns. "Lieder ohne Worte" is one of several

examples of a successful treatment of white marble as a background

painted as Leighton could paint it.

It is indeed to be hoped that Leighton's friends who possess any of

those oil paintings of landscape, sea, and architecture which lined

the walls of the great studio during his life may help in aiding to

make his gifts as a colourist more adequately represented in this

permanent collection. The above-named works are, one and all, good

specimens for the purpose. Whatever key of colour was struck, each of

these studies from nature is a faithful and beautiful record of a

scene in some lovely part of the world; whether the scene was fair and

bathed in southern sunlight, or glowing in rich depths of shadow as in

the paintings of the golden-lined interior of St. Mark's, Venice,

further enriched by the scintillating texture of mosaic surface.

Leighton's early education, however, especially when he was in

Germany, tended more to the development of his gifts as a draughtsman

than to his gifts as a colourist; still it is evident that as soon as

he began working independently of any master, his love of colour at

once asserted itself. At the age of twenty-five his first picture,

"The Cimabue Procession" (No. 42), was exhibited at the Royal Academy

and purchased by the Queen. Mr. Ruskin criticised it at the time as

the work of a _colourist_. "This is a very important and very

beautiful picture," he writes. "It has both sincerity and grace, and

is painted on the purest principles of Venetian art.... The great

secret of the Venetians was their simplicity. They were great

colourists." (See Catalogue for full quotation.) A lengthy description

of Leighton's complete pictures would not find an appropriate place in

this preface. Those who had the good fortune to see the wonderful

collection of his works in 1897 will hardly need to be reminded of the

rich and glowing feast of colour enjoyed before such pictures as

"Helios and Rhodos," painted 1869 (studies in Collections No. 218),

nor the depth and beauty in "Weaving the Wreath"(No. 144), "Antique

Juggling Girl" (No. 359), "Moorish Garden: a Dream of Granada" (No.

280), not to mention the splendour and harmony in many of the larger

and more intricate compositions. No less beautiful, it will be

remembered, was the colouring of pictures in which the scheme was

light and fair rather than rich and glowing. In "Winding the Skein"

(No. 198), for instance, there is a feeling of morning freshness in

its lovely sea and mountain background and white-marble terrace

foreground. Though cool and pale the picture is full of colour. Again,

in the slightly-turning figure of Psyche, now in the Tate Gallery (No.

59), the exquisite, pearly fairness of flesh tint must ever make this

picture a standard of colour as well as of modelling. In its own line

it is an achievement in painting that has surely never been surpassed.

Almost equally beautiful is the passage in "Venus Disrobing for the

Bath" (No. 151), where the line of the figure comes against the sea

background. Leighton's native genius might perhaps be most truly

described as one allied closely to, and echoing, that of the Greeks in

Art, though trained, during a few important years of study, in

Germany. The work of his great contemporaries, Rossetti, Millais, and

Burne-Jones, might be described as revealing Italian, English, and

Celtic sentiment, influenced by the fervour of pre-Raphaelite feeling.

Leighton's genius as a colourist will probably be ever more and more

appreciated as a partial allegiance to those three great colourists

subsides as a fashion merely.

It is quite clear, from the evidence of the earliest studies, that the

extraordinary facility evinced in Lord Leighton's drawings was the

outcome of natural gifts. No one can study his art without realising

very conclusively that he spared neither time nor trouble in order to

make it as perfect as it was in his power to make it; but equally

evident is it to those who examine his work with artistic and

intelligent insight that the great power that he possessed for taking

pains was inspired by a joyous, sensitive delight in beauty. The

untiring industry which alone could have produced the unparalleled

amount of work which he has left was clearly never weighted by any

feeling that the toil of study was irksome. On the contrary there is,

in every stroke, evidence that a fine delicate sense of beauty, a

fervent, spontaneous "sincerity of emotion" (to use Leighton's own

expression) was ever present, instigating and propelling the

conscientious persistency of his efforts. Whether it be a flower, a

face, a figure, a landscape, or but a piece of drapery--there is in

every sketch in this collection that convincing stamp on the work

which proves that the doing of it interested and delighted the artist;

the test, in other words, that the work has in it the true fibre of

the most genuine art. It is well to draw attention to this fact,

because his abnormal industry has apparently been considered by some

to be a sign of his having been deficient in rare and native art

instincts. Some there are who hold that the most notable

characteristic in Leighton's nature was an extraordinary power of

will. That he exercised such a power is undoubtedly true. In no other

manner could he have achieved the main purposes of his life, but

surely those who knew him best, and who were in the position best to

appreciate his art, would say rather that such an exercise of will was

used in the service of a still more powerful ingredient, in the truly

leading passion of his life, the moving motive of all his labours,

_i.e._ a reverent worship of beauty. Much has been said and

written,--even, strange to say, with respect to the great exhibition

of his works exhibited at Burlington House in the winter of

1897,--which implies that the scholarly element outweighed the

qualities resulting from natural gifts. Happily, the unprejudiced mind

of the widest public was not deluded into sparing its praise by

unappreciative or unintelligent criticism. Those who had not the

opportunity at the Burlington House Exhibition of judging for

themselves of the very great qualities Lord Leighton's art possesses,

have but to study the collection of drawings in his house in order to

realise that his gifts as an artist were as rare and native as was the

intellect and splendour of nature which made his personality one of

the most striking of his era.

A strong dramatic power is shown in many of Leighton's early designs,

and the best examples of these have been secured for this national

collection. Of the "Plague in Florence" (project for a picture), a

notable example, there is a photograph by Mr. Fred Hollyer (No. 175),

taken for Lord Leighton, the original sketch being in South Kensington

Museum. The evidence of this power recurs at intervals in the later

work in such pictures as "Heracles struggling with Death for the Body

of Alcestis" (No. 54), "Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon" (No. 7), (in

this picture the colour carries out the imaginative and truly-felt

dramatic instinct with singular power and beauty), "Orpheus and

Eurydice" (No. 236), "St. Jerome," "The Last Watch of Hero" (No. 28),

"Rizpah" (No. 193), and in the last work exhibited in the Royal

Academy after Lord Leighton's death, "Clytie" (No. 27), the sun-loving

soul bidding farewell to this world. But in many of the later works,

as the artist grew older, as the drama of real life became more

absorbing and intricate, as the struggle to sustain the interests of

the art of his country fell more and more directly on him

individually, he seemed to turn with a sense of relief to the more

serene, passive sentiment of such pictures as "Idyll," "Winding the

Skein" (No. 198), "Summer Slumber" (No. 94), "The Bath of Psyche," as

a contrast to the pressure and restless fever of his active life. The

tenderness of feeling, such as is invariably united with the highest

manly qualities, finds expression throughout every stage of Leighton's

art development, most notably in the drawing and painting of children.

(Children had the greatest fascination for him.) In "Elisha and the

Shunammite's Son" (No. 207), the tenderness is as touching as it is

unobtrusive. "Sister's Kiss" (No. 275), and "Return of Persephone"

(No. 53), are both examples in which wholesome, loving, human feeling

is depicted with exquisite tenderness. In "Captive Andromache" (No.

21), such feeling in the group of the caressing parents and child is

used as a contrast to enforce the loneliness of the captive widow. In

"Ariadne abandoned by Theseus: Artemis releases her by Death" (many

studies for which are in the collection still unframed), the whole

picture breathes a feeling of tenderness which is in a high sense

pathetic. In the sketches for "Michael Angelo nursing his Dying

Servant" (No. 192), even more than in the completed picture, is seen

evidence of the manly tender-heartedness which was a notable

characteristic in Leighton's nature.

The hundreds of sketches and drawings now hung on the walls of the

Leighton House form a diary of the artist's working life.

Here are records of the earliest student days in Florence in 1842.

When twelve years old he studied at the Academy there under Bezzuoli

and Servolini. Professor Costa writes of these two masters: "They were

celebrated Florentines, excellent good men, but they could give but

little light to this star, which was to become one of the first

magnitude. Leighton, from his innate kindness, loved and esteemed his

old masters much, though not agreeing in the judgment of his

fellow-students, that they should be considered on the same level as

the ancient Florentines. 'And who have you,' said Leighton one day to

a certain Bettino (who is still living), 'who resembles your ancient

masters?' And Bettino answered, 'We have still to-day our great

Michael Angelos, and Raffaels, in Bezzuoli, in Servolini, in Ciseri.'

But this boy of twelve years old could not believe this, and one fine

day got into the diligence and left the Academy of Florence to return

to England. Although the diligence went at a great pace, his

fellow-students followed it on foot, running behind it, crying, 'Come

back, Inglesino! come back, Inglesino! come back!' so much was he

loved and respected. He did come back, in fact, many times to Italy,

which he considered as his second fatherland."

There are also many records of the studies in Germany when Leighton

was working under Steinle, of all his masters the one for whom he felt

the greatest enthusiasm. The drawing in the collection which shows

most clearly the influence of Steinle's teaching, was made on the

journey from Frankfort to Rome in 1852. The subject is a monk leading

a man away from his enemy and teaching him a lesson in forgiveness. It

is signed, "_Ulm, F.L., /52_" (No. 251).

There is the sketch for the picture which Leighton and one of his

fellow-students, Signor Gamba, on that same journey, took it into

their heads to paint on the walls of an old ruined castle near

Darmstadt. "The schloss," writes Mrs. Andrew Lang, "where this piece

was painted is still in ruins, but the Grand Duke has lately erected a

wooden roof over the painting to preserve it from destruction." While

still at Frankfort, Leighton had begun the design for the "Cimabue's

Procession" (No. 42). In the collection we find the drawing of the

first design. For extraordinary precision of outline and graceful

arrangement of moving figures, this is one of the most remarkable on

the walls. We have also the study of the head in pencil for the figure

of Dante in the right-hand corner of the picture (No. 42-B), (given by

Canon Rawnsley), and a large study in water-colour and pencil of the

woman seated at the window (given by Mr. J.A. Fuller Maitland) (No.

42-C). Hanging near these is a very finely pencilled head of that boy

whom Leighton called "The prettiest and the wickedest boy in Rome." On

it is written "_Vincenzo--Roma, 1854, F.L._" Another, on which is

written "_Venezia, 1856, F.L._," is, for strength of character and

beauty combined, one of the most powerful in the collection (purchased

by a donation given by Lord Rosebery). These are a few out of fifty

drawings of heads in the House, executed for the main part, between

the years 1852 and 1856. There are many records in landscape and

street scenes of Leighton's journeying to Capri, Athens, Rhodes,

Damascus, and Algeria. Of the drawings made during his stay in Algeria

(presented to the House by Mr. Walter Derham) (Nos. 284 and 285), Mr.

Pepys Cockerell wrote in his interesting article which appeared in the

_Nineteenth Century_, "The finest of all, except the famous 'Lemon

Tree,' which is in silver point, and was done in 1859, are the

products of a visit to Algeria in 1857. I do not believe that more

perfect drawings, better defined or more entirely realised, than these

studies of Moors, of camels, &c., were ever executed by the hand of

man.... They are not particularly summary, nor do they look as if they

had been done in a moment, or without trouble. The drawings in

question are as complete as if they came from the hand of Lionardo or

Holbein."

Among the most perfect drawings Lord Leighton has left, are also the

studies from flowers and foliage. Professor Aitchison writes: "One day

I found him (Leighton) drawing the flower of the pumpkin, and he said

flowers were quite as hard to draw as human heads, if you drew them

conscientiously, but doing that rested with yourself, for there could

be no critics. He said of drawing that the great thing was to

thoroughly understand the structure, and that then, by patience and

labour, you could express the outline and the modelling. In 1859,

while at Capri, he drew the celebrated 'Lemon Tree,' working from

daylight to dusk for a week or two, and giving large details in the

margin of the snails on the tree." Mr. Ruskin writes: "Two perfect

early drawings are of 'A Lemon Tree,' 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 since Correggio's time. But you see by what

precision of terminal outline he at first restrained and exalted his

gift of beautiful _vaghezza_."

Of this drawing of "A Lemon Tree," now in the Oxford Museum, lent by

Mr. Ruskin, Sir Henry Acland has given a singularly fine photograph,

very nearly the size of the original. Lord Leighton gave Mr. Ruskin

for his life this wonderful drawing of "A Lemon Tree" to hang in his

Oxford Museum, that it might serve to impede, if possible, the

increasing wrong-headedness in study--the careless conceit, the

irreverent dash, the incompetent confidence of many modern students.

How Leighton's theories as to the manner in which flowers should be

drawn were carried out, is exemplified by two wonderful studies of the

said pumpkin flower (Nos. 97 and 104), and fifty other studies from

flowers and plants in this collection. This artist in his early

twenties, brilliant in society, full of intellectual and every other

kind of vitality, could nevertheless sit for hours perfecting the

study of a flower or a plant. One who knew him well in 1854 and 1855,

wrote in the _Times_ of 28th January 1896, three days after Leighton's

death: "I remember hearing a relative of his, a clergyman, deplore in

1854, the persistency with which Leighton was throwing away his

chances in life to become a mere artist." Five years previously,

Leighton had embodied in a design, now in his house, the longing, the

home sickness, the _Sehnsucht_ he felt for his own true much-loved

vocation. It is in the drawing of Giotto as a boy lying among his

sheep upon a bank (No. 227). Below the sketch, in Leighton's

handwriting, are the words "_Giotto, Sehnsucht_." The same writer

continues: "I enjoyed constant intercourse with him during the whole

of 1854 and to the middle of 1855. The summer of the former year we

passed at the Baths of Lucca, dining together every day for three

months. Finding the solitary splendour of the hotel at 'Villa'

irksome, he suggested that we should mess together in my lodgings,

which happened to be close to a little restaurant. In after years,

meeting in London houses, we always referred with pleasure to the

modest, but always wholesome and cleanly feasts that Lucrezia,

landlady, chef, and waitress, supplied us with at an almost nominal

cost. To me, at least, that period was one of great value and

interest, for it gave me the opportunity of studying the character of

one whose personality was attractive in no small degree. He was the

most brilliant man I ever met.... He longed for and desired success:

but only in so far as he deserved it. When he was sharply checked in

his upward career, he accepted the rebuke with humility, for he was a

modest man.[91] I had not met him for years when, coming into contact

with him, I told him how keen the interest had been with which I had

watched his progress. 'I am not satisfied,' he answered; 'I alone know

how far I have fallen short of my ideal.'" In his House are two

records of this visit to the Bagni di Lucca. One has been presented by

Mr. J. MacWhirter, R.A. (No. 249). It is a highly finished drawing of

a wreath of leaves exquisitely executed. On the same sheet is a

drawing of a vine in fruit, and in Leighton's own writing

"_Pomegranate Lucca Bagni Villa_."

* * * * *

No work in the collection evinces the precision and exact truthfulness

of Leighton's drawing better than the outline copies from pictures and

frescoes by V. Carpaccio, Giorgione, Simone Memmi and Signorelli made

in 1852-53. In the copy from the fresco in the Capella Spagnuola,

Sta. Maria Novella, Florence (No. 292), we have the portraits of

Cimabue, Giotto, Taddeo Gaddi and Simone Memmi whose work it is.[92]

The accuracy of the copy and the difficulty of making a copy at all,

can hardly fully be realised, save by one who has attempted also to

repeat the fading outlines of these dim frescoes in the only

half-lighted chapel. Slight and ineffective as Leighton's drawing may

appear at a first glance, it is, on further acquaintance, found to be

an exquisite piece of work. The absolute truth and precision with

which in pencil lines, on a small scale, he has unravelled the

outlines of the dim forms, and has depicted the quaint seriousness of

these old-world Italian countenances, makes this copy an extraordinary

feat of eye and hand. From this drawing he designed the dress of

Cimabue for the figure in his large picture, and also for the Cimabue

in the South Kensington Mosaic. Written by Leighton above the pencil

drawing are the words: "_Simone Memmi Capella Spagnoli (St. Maria

Novella, Florence), Taddeo Gaddi white and gold cap, Giotto gold and

sea green, Cimabue gold flowers on white ground, Sim. Memmi with grey

beard, head dress, yellow hood with black lining, Florence, 1853,

F.L._"

A study in brown (water-colour) (No. 91) signed "_Florence, 1854,

F.L._," was used by Leighton forty years after it was made in his

background for "Lachrymae" (No. 147), an engraving of which was given

to the collection by Messrs. A. Tooth. The same study was also used

for a charming design, highly finished in pencil and Chinese white,

apparently executed for a book illustration, which is now in the

House. One of the most beautiful of the foliage studies tells of a

happy day "_Near Bellosguardo, Sept./56._" (No. 171). It is a perfect

and highly-finished study of a vine. What joy Leighton must have had

while looking at this exquisite thing in the September sunshine on

that delicious Bellosguardo height! A butterfly and a bee were

minutely pencilled on the paper as they flew round the vine-leaves as

he drew them. "_Cyclamen Tivoli, Oct./56._" is written on another of

these tiny treasures. "_Aloes Pampl. Doria,_" "_Pyrte Roma_," "_Thistle

Rhodes_," "_Lindos/67 Asphodel_," "_Thistle Banks of Tiber, stalk

light warm brown, leaf dark cld. brown, flow. dsk. warm brown,

Roma/56_," are notes on some of these pages of studies, which can only

be said to compare with the work of a Leonardo or an Albert Duerer.

There is absolutely no mannerism traceable; there is Nature's own

quality of style. There is nothing slovenly in Nature, there is as

surely nothing slovenly in Lord Leighton's art. The gift which in

these modern days is perhaps most rare is a sense of style. Leighton's

feeling for style was as much a part of his individual and native

taste as was his delight in any other quality of beauty in Nature.

Indeed what we call style in art is but the reflection of the same

quality in Nature herself, the love which adds to the more oblivious

facts of Nature a further quality of truth, a completer insight into

her. Leighton possessed a sculptor's feeling for form. It was his

subtle grasp of truth in structure which gives a special value to his

outline drawings. The keen sensitiveness to the right character of the

form, to which his pencil outline was the limit, influenced the

quality of his touch as he portrayed that limit. He felt things "in

the round" as solid projections in various planes, advancing or

receding from the eye. As in the best sculpture, to every aspect of

the solid form you get a fine, subtle, absolutely clear outline; so in

Leighton's drawing of a contour, never is there any vague or undecided

passage. This insures to his work the quality of distinction. These

studies have, one and all, that quality. They are _distinguished_, as

are fragments of the best Greek sculpture. Every born artist falls in

love specially with one class of sentiment in Nature. Whether his

special gifts guide his passion, or his passion his gifts, who can

say? Probably each urges the other. The special note of beauty in

Nature which excited Leighton's deepest enthusiasm was the quality

which is most like that in a shell. In the pumpkin flowers in the

study given by Mr. Hamo Thornycroft of "_Kalmia Califolia_," and in

many others, is recalled notably the fine, pure, carved distinctness

of the forms in a shell--the shell that contains the form and colour

that at once delights the sense both of the painter and the sculptor.

In the oil sketches by Leighton, those poems of Southern sunlight and

colour, records of voyages in the AEgean seas, and off the coasts and

islands of Greece and Asia Minor, we again recall the special beauty

in the quality and colour of a shell, the rainbow tints in

mother-of-pearl, the faint translucence trembling in a sheen of light.

In gauging the exceptional quality of the gifts which all these studies

evince it will be well to remember that Leighton, at the time they were

made, was under no influence but that of his own high standard, and led

by no lights save those of his own exquisitely delicate perceptions.

For the last twenty or thirty years detail in Nature--vegetation and

Nature which is called "still life"--has been truthfully popularised by

photography, so that now all students have it in their power to study

from such detail treated on a flat surface. Beauty of natural structure

and grace of line rendered with right perspective on a sheet of paper

can be enjoyed and made use of by every artist. Many do avail

themselves of photographs to carry out and complete the details of

their pictures. But when Leighton made these wonderful drawings no such

standards of elaborate finish of detail had been diffused. Nor had he

joined, nor in any way come under the influence of the Pre-Raphaelite

Brotherhood, nor received any inspiration from the teaching of Mr.

Ruskin. Though we may truly liken these studies from "still life" to

those by Leonardo as regards the truthful perfection of copies from

Nature, there is no evidence in Leighton's drawings that the work, even

of the great, much-revered-by-him Italian masters had influenced him

when drawing from Nature. On the contrary, there is the strong stamp of

his own peculiar genius on all of them, the stamp that proves rather

that he saw and loved Nature as a Greek would have seen and loved her.

Essentially Greek-like was the attitude in which Leighton approached

Nature, _i.e._ with an emotion ever ardent in its intensity; but as

ever restrained by the rare gift--the sense of _style_ and of the right

balance and proportion necessary in treating worthily the beauties of

Nature in the language of art. Indeed, it may truly be affirmed that

Leighton was made more like a Greek than like an Englishman as regarded

his artistic powers, English though he was to the backbone in feeling

and sentiment. The effect produced by that collected exhibition of his

works in 1897 was, beyond all other effects, that of _achievement_; and

achievement which was the result of a perfect mastery and grasp of aims

meant to be achieved from the first to the last touch on the canvas.

Leighton was far too great an artist ever to be satisfied with the

results of his labour. Those who knew him best can testify to his

terrible depressions and disappointments. Still, there was no

"_muddling through_," to use Lord Rosebery's expression, such as so

many English artists confess to in reaching the final result.

Greek-like, Leighton saw everything in a definite, clearly outlined

view, and, from the beginning to the end, his work was one direct

forwarding of his purpose.

In 1860, Leighton migrated to his studio in Orme Square, Bayswater.

The collection possesses several drawings made about that time,

notably the studies for "Lieder ohne Worte" (No. 36). His young

friend, now the well-known portrait-painter, Mr. Hanson Walker, sat

for the head in the picture: "A Crowded Scene in Florence" (No. 198),

a design full of interest and movement, was the gift to the House of

this friend of Leighton's, who, at his instigation, took up art as a

profession. In 1866 Leighton moved from Orme Square to the House he

had built in Holland Park Road, and there we can now follow his yearly

labours by studying the sketches and drawings made for all the

well-known famous pictures of the last thirty years, till we come to

the last--to that passionate appealing figure of Clytie (No. 27),

drawn after the fatal warning had been given. The motive is the same

as that of the first design--the early design of the "Giotto" (No.

227), (made very nearly fifty years before), _i.e._ "Sehnsucht"--not

the dreamy half-conscious Sehnsucht of the awakening artist-nature as

is seen in the boy Giotto--but the passionate longing to remain in the

rich existence that rare gifts and noble affections had secured for

that artist-nature. After the studies for "Clytie" there but remain

those made for pictures never to be painted, till we reach at last the

drawings made on the 22nd of January 1896 (No. 268), the last day on

which Leighton worked. Three days after, on the following Saturday, he

died.

The object of the Committee is to make this House and its treasures a

centre for Art in the Parish of Kensington, where Lord Leighton lived

for thirty years. During seventeen of these years he was the President

of the Royal Academy, and, by common consent, the greatest President

that institution has ever had. The South Kensington Museum is not in

the parish, and, though this is one of the richest in London,

Kensington proper has no centre of Art, and is sufficiently far

removed from the centre of the metropolis to make it important that it

should possess such a centre. Since October 1898, the Committee has

arranged for Concerts, Lectures, and Readings to take place in the

Studios, and the public is now enlightened as to the exceptional

acoustic qualities the Studios possess, a fact for long recognised by

Leighton's personal friends at the yearly concerts he gave to them

when his pictures were ready for the Royal Academy. It is proposed to

add to the contents of the House an Art Library, and for this many

valuable volumes are waiting to be presented for the book-shelves to

contain them. The present proprietors are prepared to hand over the

house and all it contains to any public body who will engage to

maintain it and to meet the views of the Committee as to the use of

the House. As a memorial to Lord Leighton, the most suitable use will

be, they feel, to devote it to the furtherance of the interests of Art

of the best in all lines and among all classes; in fact to continue in

his own home the culture of that "sweetness and light" which emanated

so notably from his own nature. To conclude with words written by his

old and very intimate friend, Professor Costa, with whom he spent his

last holiday in the autumn before he died: "Leighton solved certain

problems which appeared insoluble. For instance, he combined a life at

high pressure with the most exquisite politeness--truth with poetry,

an iron will with the tenderness of a mother's heart, high aims with a

practical life and with the worship of beauty, the ardour of which was

only equalled by its purity."

E.I.B.

FOOTNOTES:

[89] The greater portion of this preface appeared as an article in the

_Magazine of Art_, October 1899. It is with the kind permission of the

proprietors that it is reprinted.

[90] Mr. De Morgan is at present engaged in making two jars in pottery,

which he intends to present to the House, to fill the niches in the

Arab Hall.

[91] "Leighton has been cut up unmercifully by the critics, but bears

on, Robert says, not without courage. That you should say his picture

looked well, was comfort in the general gloom."--_Letter from Mrs.

Browning to Mrs. Jameson, May 6th, 1856, Paris._

[92] Nineteen years later, I happened to copy the same group in

water-colour; but it was only after Leighton's death that I saw this

extraordinarily beautiful drawing.

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, 1869; President of the Royal Academy, 1878; Hon. Member,

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 Academies 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 (Artist's) 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 Verdienste.

LIST OF PRINCIPAL WORKS

_With Date and Place of Exhibition.[93] Corrected and amplified from

"Frederic, Lord Leighton, His Life and Work," by Ernest Rhys._

1850 (_circa_). *Cimabue finding Giotto in the fields of

Florence. (49-1/2 x 37 inches.) Steinle Institute

(Frankfort).

1850. The Duel between Romeo and Tybalt. (37 x 50 inches.)

1851 (_circa_). The Death of Brunelleschi. Steinle Institute.

1851. [Early Portrait of Leighton by Himself.]

1852. *A Persian Pedlar.

1852. [Buffalmacco, the Painter. A humorous subject, from Vasari,

was undertaken about this date.] See Sketch in water-colour,

Leighton House Collection.

1853. Portrait of Miss Laing (Lady Nias).

1855. Cimabue's celebrated Madonna is carried in procession

through the streets of Florence. In front of the Madonna,

and crowned with laurels, walks Cimabue himself, with his

pupil Giotto; behind it, Arnolfo di Lappo, Taddeo Gaddi,

Andrea Tafi, Niccola Pisano, Buffalmacco, and Simone Memmi;

in the corner, Dante. (87-1/2 x 205 inches.) R.A.[94]

Purchased by H.M. Queen Victoria, Buckingham Palace. See

Sketches, Leighton House Collection.

1855. The Reconciliation of the Montagues and Capulets over the

dead bodies of Romeo and Juliet. Paris International

Exhibition.[95]

1856. The Triumph of Music. (80 x 110 inches.) R.A. Painted in

Paris.

"Orpheus, by the power of his art, redeems his wife from

Hades."