SIR FREDERIC LEIGHTON, P.R.A., D.C.L., L.L.D.

Mrs. [Mark] Pattison (later Emilia, Lady Dilke), “Sir Frederic Leighton, P.R.A..” in Modern artists a series of illustrated biographies, edited by François Guillaume Dumas, 2 vols. (London: J. S. Virtue & Co., [1882]).

SIR FREDERIC LEIGHTON, P.R.A., D.C.L., LLD.

CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, MEMBER OF THE ACADEMIES OF EDINBURGH, DUBLIN, ST. LUKE, FLORENCE, ANTWERP, ETC.

A LIFE so fully occupied, fruitful of good things, and rich in honours as that of Sir F. Leighton, demands more than these pages can contain.  An outline only can be given here, and even of that some parts must be imperfect, while all things but correctness yield to conciseness.

            The P.R.A.’s family was originally of Salpian stock removed to Yorkshire, where, at Scarborough, on the 3^rd of December, 1830, he was born.  Sir James Leighton, his grandfather, was Physician to the late Empress of Russia, and in high public employment in that country; his father, likewise a physician, was at one time settled in Bath.  When my subject was little more than a child, he, an artist by nature, drew so well at nine years old that Haydon’s pupil, Lance, supported his wish to become an artist.  Nevertheless, Mr. Leighton checked rather than encouraged this wish, and promoted his son’s school education, so that, apart from the dead languages and general attainments, French, German, and Italian became as familiar to him as English, and he now discourses with distinguished taste and style in each of these tongues.  His first teacher in art was Signor Meli, who, at Rome in 1840-41, found him a most able pupil.  In 1842, and later, the youth was successively in Berlin, Munich, and Frankfort, and he worked heartily in each place, schooling and art-training going on together.

            Until Mr. Hiram Powers the sculptor said, “Sir, your son may be as eminent an artist as he pleases!” Mr. Leighton did not accede to the wishes of the student, who, soon after this, was sent to the Accademia delle Belle Arti at Florence, where he drew, and to the hospital, where he witnessed dissections.  He soon began to paint in oil; the first essay, a portrait of himself, still declares the promises which have been splendidly realized.  More schooling at Frankfort was followed by the art-teaching of Professor Becker of that city, where, in 1848, the outcome of this course appeared in a picture of “Cimabue finding Giotto,” which was admired for its colour, and “Othello and Desdemona.”  Studies in {2} Paris from Titian and Correggio, and at a life-school, occupied part of 1849.  Returning to Frankfort, Leighton entered the atelier of Steinle, and (1850-3) obeyed that master so diligently that he is, in effect, his pupil in the full sense of that term.  After this, sojourning in Rome, the student produced “Tybalt and Romeo,” “The Death of Brunelleschi,” both pictures, and a cartoon of a very remarkable design representing the Pest in Florence. These works having the profit of Steinle’s counsel, attest that the pupil’s style was formed, and, above all—as Mrs. Pattison, to whose biography I am greatly indebted—has judiciously remarked, they show that in draughtsmanship he was aiming at that fine quality in line which distinguishes every one of his works and is as precious as it is rare.

            Thus formed by nature and armed and chastened by severe studies the ever-diligent pupil was permitted to go again to Rome, where examples of energy and picturesqueness were rife, and the companionship of painters and sculptors of renown was not wanting.  Such self-command had been inculcated by Steinle, that Leighton exercised himself in nearly every direction and method of design ere entering the arena of art’s contests.  This—remembering always that he was an Englishman—he did by sending to the English Academy of 1855 the since famous “Procession of Cimabue’s Madonna,” which carried all the learned world of art before it, established the honours of the painter, and showed what an Englishman could do on the highest levels of design.  The Queen bought this picture.  The contemporaneous “Reconciliation of the Montagues and Capulets” is in America.  It is not to be supposed that the artist who could be thus laborious, devoted to design, and energetic, denied to life and mankind whatever his youth could bring of happiness in society and physical exercises.  Trained in these respects, and inheriting a taste for music from his mother, the painter, while devoted to the greatest, developed all his other gifts, bodily and mental, aesthetic and social.

            After the success attending “Cimabue” had demonstrated his powers, Leighton settled for a time in Paris, and, in 1856, sent thence to the Academy a picture entitled “The Triumph of Music,” and representing Orpheus redeeming Eurydice from Hades.  A recrudescence of popular (not critical) bewilderment with regard to “Cimabue” attended the exhibition of its successor.  Those who analyzed fine works of art appreciated the new work more than “the general,” who, in the previous year, had more warmly than wisely echoed the plaudits of students in honour of our artist.  In 1857, he devoted himself to “The Feigned Death of Juliet,” and “The Fisherman and the Siren,” from Goethe’s ballad, which were in the Academy in 1858.  “Pan” from Keats, “Samson Agonistes,” and “Nymph and Cupid,” were produced about this time.  Leighton came to London, found many friends and ample welcome here, and, being afterwards at Rome and Capri, contributed to the Exhibition of 1859, “Pavonia,” “La Nanna,” a very masculine piece of painting, and another work.  In 1860, he took up his abode in Orme Square, where he resided till Mr. Aitchison built for him the graceful and well-proportioned house of which the studio here {3} represented is the largest element.  “Capri—Sunrise,” a poetic landscape which, with delightful taste, illustrated the art of selection from nature, prepared us for new exercises by its author, and attracted much attention in the Academy of 1860.

            Five pictures appeared in 1861, including an almost Greek portrait of the artist’s sister, a work such as had rarely been seen in the Academy before that time, and the highly poetical “Lieder ohne Worte” and “Paolo e Francesca.”  The next year produced six pictures, including “Odalisque,” which has been engraved, “The Star of Bethlehem,” “Michael Angelo nursing his dying Servant,” and the beautiful “Sea-Echoes.”  “Jezebel and Ahab,” an ambitious Scripture subject, the masterpiece of grace called “A Girl feeding Peacocks,” and two others, were at the Academy in 1863.  In 1864, the painter was elected an A.R.A., and he exhibited the sumptuous “Golden Hours,” and the graver “Dante in Exile.”  Of 1865’s work, “David” and “Helen of Troy” were the more important pictures of five.  In the next year it was obvious that the painter had attained the fullness of his powers by means of the thoroughly characteristic and original “Syracusan Brides leading Wild Beasts in Procession to the Temple of Diana.”  The magnificent success attending the display of this work proved even more than its merits, for it made known that, as all men of power before him had done, Leighton had educated his public.  In this year he was in Spain, and several Spanish pictures followed from his easel.  “Venus disrobing for the Bath” (1867), a life-size, whole-length nude figure, showed that powers of draughtsmanship of a very high order had been exercised with masterly knowledge of style, that rarest of English achievements in art, and it displayed that care for finish and surface which is one of the tests of a pure taste.

            A fresco of “The Wise and Foolish Virgins” was painted at this period in Lyndhurst Church.  In 1867, the A.R.A. was in Greece, a visit which marked its effect on nearly everything he has painted since.  “Actea,” a nymph of the beach, the lovely group of “Acme and Septimius,” and “Ariadne abandoned,” were, in 1868, most worthy sequels to “Venus,” and secured the election of the author to the R.A.ship.  “St. Jerome,” “Daedalus and Icarus,” and “Electra,” 1869, preceded a visit to Egypt, where his fame induced the Khedive to furnish our painter with a state steamer for the Nile voyage. These works were followed by more and more proofs of their author’s skill and energy, the chief of which are “Hercules wrestling with Death for the Body of Alcestis,” and “Cleobulus  instructing his Daughter Cleobuline.”  “Summer Moon,” a gracefully and thoroughly representative group of girls sleeping in moonlight, holds the highest place among the more beautiful and less ambitious works of the Academician, who was soon to be employed on those great lunettes on the wall of the South Kensington Museum, which may well be taken for his masterpieces, and in respectively representing “The Arts of War” and “The Arts of Peace,” are types of industry and patriotism.

            The heroic tragedy of “Clytemnestra” exhibited tremendous force of design.  The {4} “Procession of the Daphnephoria,” at once solemn, animated, graceful, and dramatic, marked the acme of successful genius, skill, labour, and research, in exercising which “Cimabue,” “The Syracusan Brides,” “Electra,” “Venus,” and not a few more examples were produced.  I have not room for even the names of the pictures which followed the above.  A certain number of the President’s romantic and beautiful, but hardly any of his grander works, has been engraved.  As a book illustrator, the artist distinguished himself in respect to designs for “Romola” and “The great God Pan,” which were published in the “Cornhill Magazine.”  Much more important than these, and indeed among the most important art-productions of our time, is the famous statue of the “Athlete struggling with a Python,” which belongs to the Royal Academy, and will soon be succeeded by a contrasting statue called “The Sluggard,” the model for which may be seen in the background of the portrait, while the “Athlete” model stands on the table by its maker’s hand.  In the background are the design for a rondel destined for the dome of St. Paul’s, and several minor pictures, which may be sent to the next Academy.  A considerable share in the decoration of the dome of the Metropolitan Cathedral has been entrusted to the P.R.A.

            The artist was elected President of the Royal Academy in 1878, and shortly afterwards he received the honour of knighthood.  Of the beauty, sumptuousness, abundance of colour, and ever-present chastity of design and ornamentation of Sir F. Leighton’s house much has been written, but not a word too much.  The lovely Arab Hall and noble studio might be sketched in a page a-piece, but not in less space.

            The P.R.A. is ex officio one of the Trustees of the British Museum; his colleagues in that post have elected him one of the Standing Committee, and thus made him one of the governing body of the institution.

            The goal of one of Sir Frederic’s courses of honour was attained but a few days since, when he received from the members of the Artists’ Volunteer Corps a testimonial which, in the form of a large richly-embossed silver bowl and a handsomely bound album inscribed with the donors’ names, expressed their sense of the value of his services during fifteen years’ command of the regiment, from the active duties of which he has recently retired.