Frederic Lord Leighton Part 3

But his great work in 1871 was _Hercules wrestling with Death for the body of Alcestis_. The scene of this profound tragedy is on the sea-sh.o.r.e, where the body of Alcestis, robed in white, lies under the branches of trees in the centre of the picture. On the left is a group of mourners, a seated girl and a woman prostrate in grief. On the right are the two struggling figures; Hercules' superb form and tossing lion-skin contrasting finely, both in action and colouring, with the tall and coldly grey-robed spectre of Death, who presses forward to the bed where Alcestis lies, whence he is thrust back by the mighty Hercules. The exquisite figure of Alcestis with her statuesquely draped robes and their pure and delicate colouring, forms a wonderful contrast to the two strenuous figures on the right, while the figures of the mourners on the left are delightfully posed and full of grace.

In July of this year, it is interesting to remember, appeared Browning's "Balaustion's Adventure," which contained the following tribute to the above picture and its painter:

"I know, too, a great Kaunian painter, strong As Herakles, though rosy with a robe Of grace that softens down the sinewy strength: And he has made a picture of it all.

There lies Alkestis dead, beneath the sun, She longed to look her last upon, beside The sea, which somehow tempts the life in us To come trip over its white waste of waves, And try escape from earth, and fleet as free.

Behind the body I suppose there bends Old Pheres in his h.o.a.ry impotence; And women-wailers, in a corner crouch --Four, beautiful as you four,--yes, indeed!

Close, each to other, agonizing all, As fastened, in fear's rhythmic sympathy, To two contending opposite. There strains The might o' the hero 'gainst his more than match, --Death, dreadful not in thew and bone, but like The envenomed substance that exudes some dew, Whereby the merely honest flesh and blood Will fester up and run to ruin straight, Ere they can close with, clasp and overcome, The poisonous impalpability That simulates a form beneath the flow Of those grey garments; I p.r.o.nounce that piece Worthy to set up in our Poikile!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: HERCULES WRESTLING WITH DEATH FOR THE BODY OF ALCESTIS (1871)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUMMER MOON (1872) _By permission of Messrs. P. and D. Colnaghi and Co._]

To 1872 belongs the _Summer Moon_, one of the loveliest things ever shown at the Academy, a picture full of that rarer feeling for light and colour, which the artist achieved again and again in his treatment of sunset, twilight, and night effects. _After Vespers_, exhibited the same year, is a three-quarter length figure of a girl in a green robe standing in front of a bench, holding in her right hand a string of beads. This year's Academy held also _A Condottiere_, the n.o.ble figure of a man in armour, now in the Birmingham Munic.i.p.al Gallery, and a portrait of the _Right Hon. Edward Ryan_. Hardly less memorable was _Moretta_, exhibited in the Academy of 1873, in the words of a critic of the day, "one of the most subtle and fortunate productions of the painter." _Moretta_ is robed in green, with ma.s.ses of loosely arranged hair, and a tender and delicate face. _Weaving the Wreath_, shown the same year (and again in the Guildhall, 1895), is a very charming figure of quite a young girl seated on a carpet upon a raised step at the foot of a building. Behind her is a bas-relief, against which her head, crowned by a chaplet of flowers, tells out with sculpturesque effect; the sharp, vertical line of thread strained between her hands, and thence in diagonal line to the ball at her feet, is curiously rigid, and by contrast makes the draperies across which it is silhouetted appear still more mobile.

We are pa.s.sing over, deliberately, the artist's decorative masterpieces of this period,--the South Kensington frescoes to wit; of which the _Arts of War_ belongs to the year 1872, and its companion, _Arts of Peace_, to 1873. These works will be found treated at length in a later chapter on the artist's decorative work (pp. 63, 64).

In the Academy of 1874 appeared four pictures, the most important being the heroic painting,--_Clytemnestra from the Battlements of Argos watches for the Beacon-fires which are to announce the Return of Agamemnon_. In this picture, the figure of Clytemnestra is seen standing erect, with hands folded, supporting the drapery that clothes a majestic form. For further description, we may be content to quote that given at the time in the appreciative art columns of the "Athenaeum:"

"There is the grandeur of Greek tragedy in Mr. Leighton's _Clytemnestra_ watching for the signal of her husband's return from Troy. The time is deep in the fateful night, while the city sleeps; moonlight floods the walls, the roofs, the gates, and the towers with a ghastly glare, which seems presageful, and casts shadows as dark as they are mysterious and terrible. The dense blue of the sky is dim, sad, and ominous. But the most ominous and impressive element of the picture is a grim figure, the tall woman on the palace roof before us, who looks t.i.tanic in her stateliness, and huge beyond humanity in the voluminous white drapery that wraps her limbs and bosom. Her hands are clenched and her arms thrust down straight and rigidly, each finger locked as in a struggle to strangle its fellow; the muscles swell on the bulky limbs. Drawn erect and with set features, which are so pale that the moonlight could not make them paler, the queen stares fixedly and yet eagerly into the distance, as if she had the will to look over the very edge of the world for the light to come."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE JUGGLING GIRL (1874)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CONDOTTIERE (1872) _By permission of the Corporation of Birmingham_]

Another picture this year was the _Moorish Garden--a dream of Granada_, a delightful little canvas, almost square. In the foreground is a young girl carrying copper vessels, and followed by two peac.o.c.ks; the background is obviously taken from the study of a garden at Generalife (reproduced at p. 28); the _Antique Juggling Girl_ and _Old Damascus: the Jews' Quarter_, were also in the Academy of 1874.

To 1875 belongs the _Egyptian Slinger_, a picture which, as we shall see later, provoked severe censure from Mr. Ruskin. As exhibited it differed much from its present state. Not only was the sky of deeper violet, but almost in silhouette against the moon, on another raised platform, stood a draped female figure, afterwards painted out entirely. Other works shown this year were _Little Fatima_, a small half-length figure of a little girl in Eastern costume, seen against a dark background; and a _Portion of the Interior of the Grand Mosque at Damascus_ (reproduced at p. 28). As the building it depicts has since been burnt down, the fine transcript has an added interest. We are come now to a year which, even beyond other years of activity, displayed the artist's characteristic energy: 1876. In the Academy of that year, with the _Daphnephoria_, Leighton once more chose a great cla.s.sic theme, for a painting which, by its composition, reminded the critics and lovers of art of the artist's early triumph with the _Cimabue's Madonna_, and of his other great processional picture, the _Syracusan Bride_.

Of all his works in this cla.s.s, there is no doubt that the _Daphnephoria_ is the most technically complete. The procession is seen defiling along a terrace backed by trees through which the clear southern sky gleams. A youth carrying the symbolic olive bough, called the Kopo, adorned with its curious emblems, leads the procession. He is clad in purple robes and crowned with leaves. The youthful priest, known as the Daphnephoros (the laurel-bearer) follows, clothed in white raiment. He is similarly crowned, and carries a slim laurel stem. Then come three boys, in scanty red and green draperies, which serve only to emphasize the beauty of their almost naked forms, the middle and tallest one bearing aloft a draped trophy of golden armour. These are seen to be pausing while the leader of the chorus, a tall, finely modelled man, whose back is turned, is giving directions to the chorus with uplifted right hand; in his left hand is a lyre, and the left arm from the elbow is characteristically draped. The first row of the chorus is composed of five children, clothed in purple, crowned with flowers; two rows of maidens, in blue and white, come next; and these in turn are succeeded by some boys with cymbals. The interest of the pa.s.sing procession is very much enhanced by the effect produced on two lovely bystanders,--a girl and child in blue, beautifully designed, who are drawing water in the left foreground. In the valley below is seen the town of Thebes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DAPHNEPHORIA (1876) _By permission of The Fine Art Society._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: STUDY FOR "THE DAPHNEPHORIA"]

With the painter's reading of the _Daphnephoria_ it may be interesting to compare another account of this splendid religious function. At this festival in honour of Apollo, celebrated every ninth year by the Boeotians, it was usual, says pleasant Lempriere, "to adorn an olive bough with garlands of laurel and other flowers, and place on the top a brazen globe, from which were suspended smaller ones.

In the middle was placed a number of crowns, and a globe of inferior size, and the bottom was adorned with a saffron-coloured garment. The globe on the top represented the Sun, or Apollo; that in the middle was an emblem of the moon, and the others of the stars. The crowns, which were 365 in number, represented the sun's annual revolution. This bough was carried in solemn procession by a beautiful youth of an ill.u.s.trious family, whose parents were both living. He was dressed in rich garments which reached to the ground, his hair hung loose and dishevelled, his head was covered with a golden crown, and he wore on his feet shoes called _Iphricatidae_, from Iphricates, an Athenian who first invented them. He was called Daphnephoros, 'laurel-bearer,' and at that time he executed the office of priest of Apollo. He was preceded by one of his nearest relations, bearing a rod adorned with garlands, and behind him followed a train of virgins with branches in their hands. In this order the procession advanced as far as the temple of Apollo, surnamed Ismenius, where supplicatory hymns were sung to the G.o.d."[5]

In the 1876 Academy hung also the striking portrait, _Captain Richard Burton, H.M.'s Consul at Trieste_; and two very characteristic single figures, _Teresina_ and _Paolo_. The portrait of Captain Burton has been fairly described as masterly. "There is no attempt," said one critic, "at posing or picturesqueness in the portrait. It is the head of a man who is lean and rugged and brown, but the face is full of character, and every line tells. It is painted in the same strong and bold, and yet careful, way that distinguishes the head of Signor Costa, painted three years later."

The next year saw Leighton's first appearance as a sculptor. It was at the Academy of 1877 that he exhibited the well-known, vigorously designed and wrought _Athlete Struggling with a Python_.[6] This adventure of the R.A. into a new field proved so successful, that the _Athlete_ took rank as the most striking piece of sculpture of that year. "In this work," said a friendly critic, "Mr. Leighton has attempted to succeed in a truly antique way. We are bound to admit that he has done wisely, bravely, and successfully." The statue was bought, we may add, for 2,000, as the first purchase made by the trustees of the Chantrey Fund, and is now in the Tate Gallery at Millbank. It was afterwards repeated in marble, by the artist's own hand, for the Danish Museum at Copenhagen.

Still more popular was his _Music Lesson_, another work in the same exhibition. To realize the full charm of this picture, one must see the original; for much depends upon the beauty of its colouring. Imagine a cla.s.sical marble hall, marble floor, marble walls, in black and white, and red--deep red--marble pillars; and sitting there, sumptuously attired, but bare-footed, two fair-haired girls, who serve for pupil and music-mistress. The elder is showing the younger how to finger a lyre, of exquisite design and finish; and the expression on their faces is charmingly true, while the colours that they contribute to the composition,--the pale blue of the child's dress, the pale flesh tints, the pale yellow hair, and the white and gold of the elder girl's loose robe, and the rich auburn of her hair,--are most harmonious. A bit of scarlet pomegranate blossom, lying on the marble ground, gives the last high note of colour to the picture. Two other pictures of 1877 must not be omitted. _Study_ shows us a little girl (the present Lady Orkney), in Eastern garb, diligently reading a sheet of music which lies before her on a little desk. There is great charm in the simple grace of the picture and in the softly brilliant colouring of the child's costume.

Very delightful, too, is the portrait of _Miss Mabel Mills_ (now the Hon. Mrs. Grenfell), habited in black velvet, and a large dark hat with coloured feathers, set against a grey background, a picture here reproduced. _A Study_, _An Italian Girl_, and a _Portrait of H. E.

Gordon_, were all three shown at the Grosvenor Gallery the same year.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORTRAIT OF THE HON. MABEL MILLS (1877)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORTRAIT OF CAPTAIN RICHARD BURTON (1876)]

Another picture, in which a simple theme is treated in a cla.s.sic fas.h.i.+on--not dissimilar to that employed for the _Music Lesson_--is _Winding the Skein_, a lovely painting exhibited at the Academy in 1878.

In this we see two Greek maidens as naturally employed as we often see English girls in other surroundings. This idealization of a familiar occupation--so that it is lifted out of a local and casual sphere, into the permanent sphere of cla.s.sic art, is characteristic of the whole of Leighton's work. He, like Sir L. Alma-Tadema and Albert Moore, contrived also to preserve a certain modern contemporary feeling in the cla.s.sic presentment of his themes. He was never archaic; so that the cla.s.sic scenarium of his subjects, in his hands, appears as little antiquarian as a mediaeval environment, shall we say, in the hands of Browning.

_Nausicaa_, a full-length girlish figure, in green and white draperies, standing in a doorway, and _Serafina_, another single figure, and _A Study_, were also shown the same year. At the Grosvenor Gallery were a _Portrait of Miss Ruth Stewart Hodgson_, a demure little damsel in outdoor attire, and a _Study of a Girl's Head_, full face.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NAUSICAA (1878)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: STUDY FOR "ELIJAH AND THE ANGEL"]

CHAPTER V

YEAR BY YEAR--1878 TO 1896

On November 13th, 1878, Frederic Leighton was elected President of the Royal Academy, in succession to Sir Francis Grant, and immediately received the honour of knighthood.

In 1879 Leighton sent eight contributions to the Academy, not one of which, with the possible exception of the _Elijah_, perhaps, has been counted among his masterpieces. Four of them belong to that group of ideal figure paintings which almost const.i.tute a _genre_ in themselves: _Biondina_, _Catarina_, _Amarilla_, and _Neruccia_, a girl with a red flower in her hair, in white dress, against a dark background. The finely austere _Elijah in the Wilderness_ was an addition to the notable group of Scriptural paintings. In this picture the nude figure of the prophet is seen reclining on a rock, with head and arms thrown back, while beside him stands an angel holding bread and water. The striking and powerful _Portrait of Professor Costa_, the _Portrait of the Countess Brownlow_, and a portrait study, completed the list of the year's contributions, the largest number ever sent in by Leighton, before his election or afterward. This year ten of his landscape-studies in oil were exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery.

It may be thought by the outsider that the coveted office of the President of the Royal Academy of Arts is, in a way, an ornamental one,--some such golden sinecure as that of the old High Chamberlains.

Nothing could be more mistaken. "Not everybody," wrote the late Mr.

Underhill, who for some time, as private secretary to Sir Frederic Leighton, had special opportunities of knowing, "is aware of the tax upon a man's time and energy that is involved in the acceptance of the office in question. The post is a peculiar one, and requires a combination of talents not frequently to be found, inasmuch as it demands an established standing as a painter, together with great urbanity and considerable social position. The inroads which the occupancy of the office makes upon an artist's time are very considerable. There is, on the average, at least one Council meeting for every three weeks throughout the whole of the year. There are from time to time general a.s.semblies for the election of new members and for other purposes, over which the President is bound, of course, to preside. For ten days or a fortnight in every April he has to be in attendance with the Council daily at Burlington House, for the purpose of selecting the pictures which are to be hung in the Spring Exhibition. He has to preside over the banquet which yearly precedes the opening of the Academy, and he has to act as host at the annual conversazione. Finally, it is his duty every other year to deliver a long, elaborate, and carefully prepared 'Discourse' upon matters connected with art, to the students who are for that purpose a.s.sembled. It is a post of much honour and small profit."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SISTER'S KISS (1880) _By permission of the Fine Art Society_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORTRAIT OF SIGNOR COSTA (1879)]

In filling this post, and neglecting no one of its smallest offices and endless small courtesies, an artist had needs be without the characteristic artist's defects of hesitation and delay; and in fact, Lord Leighton mastered, as much as any statesman of our time, the indispensable secret of despatch. We quote from Mr. Underhill again: "To administer the affairs of the Academy, to fulfil a round of social semi-public and public engagements, and to paint pictures which invariably reach a high level of excellence, would of course be impossible--even to Sir Frederic Leighton--were it not for the fact that he makes the very most of the time at his disposal. 'That's the secret,'

remarked a distinguished member of the Academy to the present writer some little time before the President's death; 'Sir Frederic knows exactly how long it will take to do a certain thing, and he apportions his time accordingly.' This being the case, no one will be surprised to learn that he attached the greatest importance to punctuality. He himself never failed to keep an appointment at the exact moment fixed upon, and he expected, of course, similar punctuality on the part of others. The stroke of eight from the Academy clock was the signal for Sir Frederic to enter the Council Room at Burlington House, and to open the deliberations of the body over which he presided. 'They will never again get a man to devote so much time and energy to the business of the Academy,' said Sir Frederic Leighton's most distinguished colleague shortly before his death; 'never again.'" And since that time the same tribute has been paid ungrudgingly in public and private often enough.

In 1880, we are tempted by five canvases; of which the _Sister's Kiss_ and _Psamathe_, are perhaps the most important. The former turns a garden wall to delightful account, in its picture of a child, who is seated upon it, and of her charmingly drawn elder sister, who gives the kiss. The composition of this picture may be seen in our reproduction, but the colour of the bronze green robe--of singular beauty--is of course not even suggested. More cla.s.sic, perhaps, and not less picturesque, is the Greek maiden, Psamathe, who was, if we remember aright, one of the Nereides. The artist has painted her sitting by the seash.o.r.e, gazing over the aegean, with her back turned to the spectator.