Mrs. Russell Barrington

“ 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. ”

“ Leighton was an artist of that true type in whom no influence whatsoever can deter or slacken incessant zeal for work. In the deepest recesses of his nature burnt the unquenchable fire, the paramount longing to follow in Nature's footsteps, and to create things of beauty. Among the many loyal servants who have dutifully worshipped at the shrine of art, never was there one who more completely devoted the best that was in him to her service.
"Va! your human talk and doings are a tame jest; the only passionate life is in form and colour." ”

“ I said "humbler form" of art for lack of a better word; for a craft cannot fitly be called humble which has occupied and delighted men of the very highest gifts. Did not the mind that conceived the "Perseus" of the Loggia dei Lanzi pour out some of its richest fancies in a jewelled salt-cellar for the table of a Pope? Did not the sublimest genius that ever shone upon the world of art receive its first guidance in the workshop of a jeweller—a jeweller who was himself a painter also of high renown? ”

“ I do not think there exists anywhere a more powerfully and fantastically individual town than Verona; it is to Italy what Nuremburg is to Germany; but it is a transfiguration of Nuremburg; in point of wildly picturesque variety it defies description and surpasses expectation; it is saturated with art; wherever one turns, the eye is struck by some beautiful remnant of the taste—that was; of that glowing, sterling feeling for art, which spread itself over everything, and ennobled whatever it touched. ”

“ He viewed the influence of art as one which should perfect the life of every class; should purify in all directions the debasing elements of materialism and self-interest; should put zest and gratitude into the hearts of all men and women who can see and feel, by awakening a sense of the perfection and beauty of nature, art forming an explanatory and illuminating link between her and mankind—a translation of her perfection transmitted with all reverence by the artificer;—a perfecting beautiful pinnacle in the erection and development of a noble human being. ”

“ Family annals record the delight with which Leighton, the boy of ten, enjoyed the beauty of nature in Switzerland, the flowers and everything he saw in the land of mountains. When he reached Rome, the buildings, the fountains, the ruins, the models awaiting hire on the Piazza di Spagna, fascinated him, and he filled many sketch-books with records of all the picturesque scenes that struck him as so new and wonderful. From earliest days, drawing was Leighton's greatest amusement, and he had it always in his own mind that he would be an artist and nothing else. ”

“ Dear Lina,—I can't help feeling a good deal of responsibility about the melancholy, treeless wilds to which I have sent you, because I happen to like them vastly; and I particularly feel that everything will turn on your seeing, not indeed all or nearly all I saw—that is impossible—but as much as your strength will allow; take your courage, therefore, in one hand, your goloshes in another, and your umbrella in a third, and from the car—abseits—see the whole coast-line close to the rocks overlooking the sea; there is not an inch that won't reward you. ”

“ Briton Rivière's words—which was the keynote of all Leighton's actions, was impelled in the first instance by a feeling of gratitude for the joy with which beauty in nature and art had steeped his being from a child; a deep well of happiness, a constant companion, ever springing up in his heart, which he craved that others should share with him. This happiness gave sweetness to his life, lovableness to his character, irresistible power to his control. Leighton's was truly a life of praise and gratitude for the joys nature had bestowed on him. ”

“ It was his subtle grasp of truth in structure which gives a special value to his outline drawings. The keen sensitiveness to the right character of the form, to which his pencil outline was the limit, influenced the quality of his touch as he portrayed that limit. He felt things "in the round" as solid projections in various planes, advancing or receding from the eye. As in the best sculpture, to every aspect of the solid form you get a fine, subtle, absolutely clear outline; so in Leighton's drawing of a contour, never is there any vague or undecided passage. ”

“ When on my journey I saw Nature unfold before my eyes in her teeming summer glory, and saw how each flower is like a miracle on her richly worked garment, when I saw how golden threads wound everywhere through the whole fabric of beauty, then it seemed to me that the artist could not without sacrilege pass over the least thing that is sealed with the love of the Creator; when, later on, I noticed in Venice and Florence with what love and truth the great Masters had rendered the smallest, then my feelings arose ”

“ The whole landscape is a harmonious confusion of small valleys and hills, rolling and falling within and around and beyond each other, like folds of rich and majestic drapery. Oh, what lights and shadows roam and rest over these hill-sides and in the hollows between them! The country is very thickly wooded, and the woods are literally of every colour in the rainbow, all mixed together under a sky, the peculiar characteristic of which is not so much softness or brightness, as a transparent purity that seems as if there was no atmosphere betwixt oneself and the various objects one sees. ”

“ I hear, with particular interest, that you are painting the little picture of the Madonna that you composed twenty-three years ago in the diligence when you were travelling to Italy; it is a very good thing. I imagine a lovely landscape in the background; an oleander, rich in starry bloom; grey olives and stately cypresses wave in the distance; soft violets nestle on the bank of the cool water, and gaze with earnest eyes out of the whispering grass. ”

“ Leighton never put out his hand towards the limbo of vulgarity or fashion. Like Virgil, like Mendelssohn, Leighton was a stylist, and his life's work showed a perfection of attainment upon the lines which he drew out for his progress almost to my thinking unrivalled in the work of any of his contemporaries. Here and there he struck a deep note of poetry, here and there he was like a Greek for his simplicity, here and there his work shows the luxury of the Venetians, the restraint of the Florentines, but never perhaps the majesty of M. Angelo or the strong charm of Raphael. ”