One last word in antic.i.p.ation of certain objections not unlikely to be raised against an a.s.sumption which may seem to be implied in the existence of our a.s.sociation--the a.s.sumption 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 circ.u.mstance 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 a.s.sociation, 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 a.s.sert 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 a.s.surance 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 a.s.sociation 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 ident.i.ty 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 const.i.tutes 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 munic.i.p.al 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 cl.u.s.ter 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 pa.s.ses 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 subst.i.tuting 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 a.s.signed 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 princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sociation was received at the Leighton House, and at the meeting which preceded the conversazione, Lord Crawford, President of the a.s.sociation, 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 s.p.a.ces 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 gla.s.s, 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 a.s.sisted 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 n.o.ble 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 ma.s.sive 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 s.p.a.ce (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 a.s.serted 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 surpa.s.sed.
Almost equally beautiful is the pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sion 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, pa.s.sive 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 un.o.btrusive. "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 c.o.c.kerell 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 pa.s.sed 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 ill.u.s.tration, 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 b.u.t.terfly 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 Durer.
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 pa.s.sage. 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 cla.s.s of sentiment in Nature. Whether his special gifts guide his pa.s.sion, or his pa.s.sion 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 sh.e.l.l. In the pumpkin flowers in the study given by Mr. Hamo Th.o.r.n.ycroft of "_Kalmia Califolia_," and in many others, is recalled notably the fine, pure, carved distinctness of the forms in a sh.e.l.l--the sh.e.l.l 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 sh.e.l.l, 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 att.i.tude 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 pa.s.sionate 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 pa.s.sionate longing to remain in the rich existence that rare gifts and n.o.ble 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 Sat.u.r.day, 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 inst.i.tution 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 cla.s.ses; 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.