The Life, Letters and Work of Frederic Leighton Volume II Part 25

_Thursday Evening, 1879 or 1880._

DEAR WELLS,--I have noticed during my last two sittings at your studio, that, whenever the deeply interesting subject of our Academy appeared on the tapis, it stood in the way of your work, and I have therefore purposely abstained, as you no doubt remarked, from going beyond the merest surface in the discussion of any of the points on which we have touched. I felt that the sittings I gave you being so few and so scantily measured out, the least I could do was not, wittingly, to make you lose your time. That is to say, I did not _tell_ you to-day orally what I now _write_, namely, my impression on your proposed question concerning the Chantrey purchases. The characteristic straightforwardness and loyalty with which you wished me to be informed on the point beforehand will not permit me to be silent in regard to your view. I have looked with the greatest care into the extract from the will which we all have, and have given the matter that thought which is due to your earnest conscientiousness, and I have satisfied myself that the General a.s.sembly is wholly without a _locus standi_ in claiming to control the expenditure of the Chantrey trust moneys in any way whatever; those moneys never pa.s.s into its hands or come under its cognisance; they are paid into the hands of the president and treasurer, against their receipt, and are dealt with solely by the president and council for the time being. An attempt, therefore, on the part of the General a.s.sembly to a.s.sume control in this matter is in my view _out of order_, and it would therefore be out of order to ask or answer a question based, as yours is, on that a.s.sumption. I think you will find this view in harmony with the opinion of the body; if it is largely challenged, I shall postpone the answer till I have taken a legal opinion, as the point is very important. Here are my cards on the table.--In haste, yours sincerely,

FRED LEIGHTON.

_Private._]

_Monday._

DEAR WELLS,--The usual stress of business has prevented me till now from thanking you for your note and valuable information; I shall, with great interest, turn to the pa.s.sages you allude to as soon as I get a good opportunity, and what I read will have the greatest weight with me when I vote again on a purchase. It would not, however, touch my point in regard to the _General a.s.sembly_, which can only interfere with a past purchase if it can be shown to be illegal; this can, of course, only be established by legal authority, and I am, myself, sorry that your first resolution does not run thus: That the President be requested to consult high legal authority as to whether such and such purchases are barred by the will of Sir F. Ch. If your misgivings on that head are shared by a majority the thing would pa.s.s immediately and undiscussed, almost.

As concerns your motion on the pension resolution, I own to much misgiving; _I should not dream of alluding to this had you not yourself taken me aside about it the other day._ I am so far at one with you in principle that I feel, I can't say how deeply, that it is our paramount duty to interpret in the largest and most elevated sense our duty to the art of the country that we may be worthy in the eyes of the enlightened portion of the community of our high place, and that it is equally inc.u.mbent on us to keep our personal interests vigilantly in sub-ordination.

I think that one of the present resolutions militates against this last view, and I need not conceal from you that it has not my sympathy. I am, however, very strongly of opinion that the form of your opposition to it will not be supported, and that in your desire for a logical comprehensiveness, you will fail of your end, which by simple direct opposition to the particular measure on the principle you have already enunciated and explained, you might _very probably_, I believe, achieve. I need not, I think, a.s.sure you, my dear Wells, that nothing is further from my thoughts than any _interference_ with a member's freedom; indeed, on that head my views are known to you; but I can't refrain from saying thus much to give you an opportunity of quietly thinking matters over (_don't answer this_) before Wednesday. After all, you want primarily to get rid of paragraph 6, not to ensure a dialectical triumph. If the alternative is between your Committee and the resolution as it stands, I feel absolutely convinced that you will be left in a very cold minority; but if you point out that paragraph 6 takes our bounties off the ground of necessity, our only tenable ground, in fact commutes a _bounty_ into an unconditional _claim_ (of a formidable pecuniary nature, too), you will march in, I can't help thinking, with flying colours.

Don't, I repeat, be at the trouble to answer this expression of the opinion of,--Yours sincerely,

FRED LEIGHTON.

_Monday, February 1, (?) 1881._

DEAR WELLS,--Since receiving your letter I have been so absolutely engrossed with business and work that I have not had time till now to answer it. I am sincerely glad you have asked for a little modification in the terms of the Lucy pet.i.tion; meanwhile I have written to Gladstone, and my letter has been acknowledged with a promise to note its contents.

In regard to your Chantrey resolution, I feel that, after the manner of very busy men, I have written in haste and not made myself quite clear. I should like, first, to remove one apprehension which you seem to have entertained; however strongly I may be convinced of the correctness of my own view on the matter under discussion, I cannot too emphatically say that as long as the points at issue were still _sub judice_ I should not countenance a purchase which should a.s.sume my view to be the right one; but no such postponement as would lead to this dilemma is to be feared; what I propose is this: as soon as ever we have closed the discussion on the schools, and whilst they are being printed in their amended form for final consideration, therefore, on Friday next, if we get through on Wednesday, or failing that on the 22nd or 23rd of February, the resolutions of Council will be put on the table in their rotation; as, however, the next step in the Chantrey affair is to merely _hear_ my answer to your memorandum, and as I understand that discussion on it will not be expected till members shall have had it to consider at their leisure, I will read it and lay it on the table _before_ I take up the resolutions of Council which stand on the paper before it, so that when it comes up for final discussion, presumably in the first days of March, it can be discussed and voted on with full mastery of the subject. It is on the agenda paper of THAT _meeting_ that your affirmative motion will stand; it does not come into force till then, since it is contingent on the effect produced on your mind by my answer of Friday (or of the next meeting after).

With respect to Redgrave's motion, it may lead to a technical "censure" of the Council; but there are censures and censures, and n.o.body will suppose, certainly I never dreamt, that you meant to imply moral obliquity to us in regard to what we have done. I have not a word to object to what you advance about the right of complaint, but it does not exactly cover the case: if you caught us, say, taking our friends to the Exhibition (or ourselves) on Sunday, a matter on which no two opinions are admissible, then "a complaint" would be in its place; but in the matter of payment to Treasurer, two opinions may and do exist, and they can only be measured against one another by a vote, and a vote can only be taken on a motion.

Lastly, as to the new codification committee, I think with you, _in strictest confidence_, that ---- was not a good choice; but he was chosen in the usual manner by a majority of votes: that your labours were not remunerated in the usual manner is an oversight, which, of course, must and shall be set right. There seems altogether, and your letter corroborates that impression, to have been much vagueness about the doings of the Committee _as a Committee_, though, as usual, much zealous work on your part. I do not gather that attendances were entered in a book, which is the machinery by which payment is generally regulated, and the Committee having lapsed without reporting to the Council on its labours (being a _sub-committee_ of the Council of 1878, it lapsed by a natural death with that Council), the whole thing had fallen out of notice. I hope that the old sub-committee will put in their claims, which will very certainly be satisfied. The codification has frequently been in my mind, for I consider it of very great importance, but as it is my impression that I am considered to drive the work of the Academy full hard as it is, I have hesitated to impose more labours on my colleagues, even though I am always ready to share them.--Sincerely yours,

FRED LEIGHTON.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ELIJAH IN THE WILDERNESS." 1879]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SKETCH FOR "ELIJAH IN THE WILDERNESS." 1879 Leighton House Collection]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "NERUCCIA." 1879 By permission of Mrs. Lees]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE BATH OF PSYCHE." 1890 National Gallery of British Art (Tate Gallery)]

_Tuesday Morning_, 2 HOLLAND PARK ROAD, KENSINGTON, W., _March 18, 1884_.

DEAR WELLS,--Thank you for your letter received yesterday, which only lack of time prevented me from answering at once. I am happy to say that Richmond cheerfully acceded to my wish in regard to clauses 6 and 7. I do not think with Calderon, who has written to me, that the words of a man so high-minded as Richmond will indispose members in this matter, and, though I feel the importance of raising no prejudice against the proposal as keenly as ever, still wish him to initiate it. It is, I agree with you, a pity that the question of the retiring pensions must come off first; but that is, I fear, quite unavoidable, and it connects itself with the very first resolution. I a.s.sure you, my dear Wells, that I _see_ the bearing of all you say on this head as plainly as possible, and have done so all along; but it does not prevail with me, because it does not cover the whole ground, and because I do not antic.i.p.ate the dangers for which you think it might be used as a precedent.

In view of my own personal painful position in this matter, I shall _ask_ the a.s.sembly _not_ to ratify the clause which affects _me_.--In great haste, yours sincerely,

FRED LEIGHTON.

Leighton's official life, as understood and carried out by him, entailed infinitely more strain and occupation than can be described in these pages, but, notwithstanding, unless the call away from his easel was imperative, he kept certain hours in the day sacred to his art. These were from 9 A.M. till noon, and from 1 P.M. till 4. It was only in the off hours that he got through his other labours, which he performed, nevertheless, with most a.s.siduous conscientiousness.

Among his duties outside the Academy were those at the British Museum.

Mr. H.A. Grueber, Keeper of the Coins and Medals, writes: "Sir Frederic Leighton was elected a Trustee of the British Museum on May 14, 1881. He was an active member of the Standing Committee, who practically manage the affairs of the Museum, and he took great interest in the place. He was also a member of the Sub-committees on Buildings, on Antiquities, Prints and Drawings, also of those on Coins and Medals."

In the first R.A. Exhibition after his election, three pictures of the eight Leighton sent have, I think, a special interest--"Elijah in the Wilderness" (the picture into which he said he put more of himself than into any other he had painted up to that time); the portrait of his very dear friend Professor Costa, painted in the previous autumn at Lerici, and the head "Neruccia." Leighton with Costa studied the methods used in painting by the Venetians and Correggio, and Costa wrote the following with reference to them:--

The result of these studies and of the experience of years was that Leighton and I definitely adopted the following method.

Take a canvas or panel with the whitest possible preparation and non-absorbent--the drawing of the subject to be done with precision and indelible. On this seek to model in monochrome so strongly that it will bear the local colours painted with exaggeration, and then the grey, which is to be the ground of all the future half-tones; on this paint the lights, for which use only white, red, and black, avoiding yellow, and, stabbing (botteggiando) with the brush while the colour is wet, make the half-tints tell out from the grey beneath, which should be thoroughly dry. When all is dry, finish the picture with sc.u.mbles (spegazzi), adding yellow to complete the colour.

Leighton formed his method of painting from these general maxims, and he painted my portrait at Lerici on these principles as an experiment, and then in 1878 we adopted the system definitely. For this portrait he had four sittings--one for the drawing and the monochrome chiaroscuro, one for the local colours; then, having covered all with grey, he painted the lights with red, white, and black, making use of the thoroughly dried grey beneath for his half-tints. With sc.u.mbles he completed the colour and the modelling.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE LIGHT OF THE HAREM." 1880 By kind permission of the Directors of the Leicester Gallery]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "AND THE SEA GAVE UP THE DEAD WHICH WERE IN IT"

Sketch for Complete Design, 1892]

[Ill.u.s.tration: STUDY FOR FIGURE IN FRIEZE, "MUSIC." 1886 Leighton House Collection]

[Ill.u.s.tration: STUDY FOR "ANDROMEDA." 1890 Leighton House Collection]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FROM SKETCH IN CLAY FOR PERSEUS, IN THE PICTURE "PERSEUS AND ANDROMEDA." 1891]

[Ill.u.s.tration: STUDY FOR FIGURE IN PANEL IN ROYAL EXCHANGE--"PHOENICIANS BARTERING WITH BRITONS"

Leighton House Collection]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "CYMON AND IPHIGENIA." 1884 The Corporation of Leeds]

[Ill.u.s.tration: STUDY IN COLOUR FOR "CYMON AND IPHIGENIA." 1884 By permission of Mrs. Stewart Hodgson]

[Ill.u.s.tration: STUDY FOR SLEEPING GROUP FOR "CYMON AND IPHIGENIA"

Given by Lord Leighton to G.F. Watts, O.M., and given by the latter to the Collection in Leighton House, 1883]

As the exquisite fragments in pencil of cyclamen, bramble and vine branch,[68] explain most intimately Leighton's genius as a draughtsman, so this head of Neruccia appears to me, together with one other work, to explain most explicitly his genius as a painter--a modeller with the brush. In 1890 Leighton painted "The Bath of Psyche."[69] The modelling in the torso of this figure, and in the head of Neruccia, reach the zenith as exemplifying Leighton's individuality as a painter. They might truly earn for him the t.i.tle--Praxiteles of the brush.

It would be tedious for writer and reader alike to describe too minutely the special characteristics of even the most notable pictures painted during the seventeen years when Leighton occupied the position of President of the Royal Academy. Words are but poor interpreters of painting such as his. Eighty canvases, two statues, and two designs--the reverse of the Jubilee Medallion, "And the sea gave up its dead which were in it"--were exhibited at the Royal Academy; eighteen slighter works at the Suffolk Street, and twenty-three at the Grosvenor Galleries. On referring to the list in the Appendix it will be realised how great was the amount of labour involved in the achievement of many of these works, considering their size, the complication of their designs, and also the completeness of their finish. It must also be remembered that Leighton made many hundreds of studies for his pictures. More especially numerous were these for the designs "And the sea gave up the dead which were in it," "The Dance, Decorative Frieze"; "Cymon and Iphigenia"; "Music, a Frieze"; "Design for the reverse of the Jubilee Medallion," "Captive Andromache,"

"Perseus and Andromeda," "Return of Persephone," "The Garden of the Hesperides," "Rizpah," "Summer Slumbers," "The Spirit of the Summit,"

"Flaming June," "Phoenicians Bartering with Britons," and "Clytie."

When all these achievements are taken into account it will be realised that Leighton, to the end, however important his duties outside his studios, was true to his vocation, and proved himself the "workman first and the official after."

As a work combining poetic feeling, power of design, and great beauty in the arrangement of line, while at the same time expressing most explicitly Leighton's creed of creeds--namely, the enn.o.bling and elevating influence of beauty in the lives of men and women--"Cymon and Iphigenia" is perhaps the picture he himself would have chosen as the most representative among these later works. He chose it as the one he wished sent to the Berlin Exhibition in 1885. When beginning it he described to me the moment of the day he wished to catch for the scene--"the most mysteriously beautiful in the whole twenty-four hours, when the _merest lip_ of the moon has risen from behind the sea horizon, and the air is haunted still with the flush of the after-glow from the sun already hidden in the west."[70]

The study for the group of sleeping figures reproduced here is almost identical in design with the sketch in plaster from the clay, so lamentably destroyed when Watts lent it to be cast in bronze after Leighton's death. Leighton also gave the drawing of this group to his fellow artist, so enthusiastically did Watts admire it. He, in his turn, gave it to the Leighton House Collection in the year 1897, together with the fine painting which Leighton exchanged for his own portrait, painted about 1863, and which greeted friends as they mounted the staircase in Leighton House during all the years he lived in Holland Park Road (see frontispiece to Vol. I.). The study for "Cymon and Iphigenia" is particularly valuable now as an example of Leighton's rapid sketches where every touch reflects a mine of knowledge, because it was put under gla.s.s before any of the crispness of the touch was blurred by rubbing.[71]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE SLUGGARD"

From the Bronze Statuette--a direct reproduction from Lord Leighton's small sketch, 1886. Leighton House Collection]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "NEEDLESS ALARMS"

From Bronze Statuette, 1886. Leighton House Collection]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE LAST WATCH OF HERO." 1887]