Mrs. Russell Barrington

“ All forms of Art are alike fired with it. Architecture first, exulting in new flights of vigorous and bold creation; then Sculpture; last, Painting, virtually a new Art, looked out on to the world with the wondering delight of a child, timidly at first, but soon to fill it with the bright expression of its joy. Those were halcyon days; the questions, 'Why do I paint?' 'Why do I model?' 'Why should I build beautifully?' 'What—how—shall I build, model, paint?' had no existence in the mind of the artist. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A third in a manner does not even know what he has done, but he is like a vine which has produced grapes, and seeks for nothing more after it has once produced its proper fruit. As a horse when he has run, a dog when he has tracked the game, a bee when it has made the honey, so a man, when he has done a good act, does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season."
Leighton's work in every direction was complete work, because his mind grasped completely the proportion and aspect of everything he undertook. ”

“ 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 ”

“ When Plato classes the souls of the philosopher, the artist, the musician, and the lover together [5] as having been born to see most of truth, he recognises the same inspired instinctive quality in the artist as in the lover. In the artist is linked, as part of its separateness from the rest of the community, the inseparable shyness of the lover. Anything is better than to expose the sacred, indescribable treasure to the indifferent stare of the uninitiated. We find every sort of ruse adopted by lovers and artists to avoid being forced into explicitness on so tender, so intimate a passion ”

“ To Leighton the simple joyous child of nature, in the form of the unsophisticated Italian, was a preferable being. To the end of his life he retained much of the child in his own nature, and had ever an inborn sympathy with the love for children so evident everywhere in unspoilt Italy; for the gracious caressing of them by the poorest of the poor—old men in the veriest tatters and rags showing a complete and beautiful submission to the dominating charms of babyhood. ”

“ When we are in Rome, hemmed in by narrow streets, St. Peter's is invisible; once across that wonderful Campagna and mounting the slopes of Frascati, there, like a huge pearl gleaming in the light, rises the dome of the Mother Church. As distance gives the true relation between a lofty building and its suburbs, so time alone can decide the height of the pedestal on which to place the great.
The day after Leighton's death Watts wrote to me:—
"...The loss to the world is so great that I almost feel ashamed to let my personal grief have so large a place. ”

“ When, in the late autumn of 1852, he first arrived in Rome, he had just stepped from the position of being one in a family to that of being an independent unit; and, though accompanied by his brother artist, Count Gamba, he felt greatly the loss of what he had left behind—the inspiring companionship of Steinle, compared to which nothing in Rome was worthy to count as an art influence. Obliged to work in a small, inconvenient studio, the only one obtainable—expected friends, whose society he valued, failing him—he felt the want of so much that he could hardly enjoy what he had. ”

“ What a bore Mamma is! I am constantly thinking of my precious absent son, and long, as only a mother can, to see you; when I look at your picture, I feel quite wretched sometimes that I cannot, though you seem alive before me, stroke your cheek and lean my head on your chest. The other day we were startled by the appearance in the drawing-room of Andrew, Lizzy, and the girls; and the first greeting over, "That's my saucy Fred," burst out of your aunt's mouth; "dear fellow, what a likeness;" and Lina was equally admired, and we all agreed in deploring Gussy's absence from the wall. ”

“ As reproductions of the beauty in line, form, and structure—the architecture, so to speak, of vegetation—nothing ever came closer to Nature revealed by a human touch through a treatment on a flat surface.
On December 22, 1852, Leighton writes to his mother from Rome: "I long to find myself again face to face with Nature, to follow it, to watch it, and to copy it, closely, faithfully, ingenuously—as Ruskin suggests, 'choosing nothing and rejecting nothing,'" and it is in this spirit that he set to work when he filled sketch-books with exquisite studies of the flowers and plants he loved best. ”

“ He held as his creed of creeds that the mission of Art was to act as a lever in the uplifting of the human race, not by going beyond her own domain, but by directing the sense of beauty with which her true priesthood must ever be endowed, in order to eliminate from man his more brutal tendencies, to refine and perfect his insight into nature, and to develop his delight in her perfection. He held that, the stronger the emotional force in an artist, the stronger the sense of responsibility should be ”

“ I remember once casually remarking to Leighton how much easier writing was than painting. He answered quickly but seriously—quite impressively: "Believe me, nothing is easy if it is done as well as you can possibly do it." This was Leighton's creed of creeds. Whatever genius or facilities an artist may possess, he must ignore them as factors in the fight. He must possess them unconsciously—the whole conscious effort being concentrated on surmounting difficulties, not on encouraging facilities. ”

“ What an opportunity this would be, backed by these giants of breathing bronze, to make an indignant descent on some paltry and muddle-headed moderns, who don't know how to discriminate between that kind of finish which proceeds from the love of a smooth surface, and makes the artist equally careful of his pumps and of his pictures, and that other kind of minuteness which is the beautiful fruit of a refined love for nature, and proceeds from a feeling of piety towards the mother of art, and who complacently call 'niggling,' a quality above the appreciation of their breadth-mad brains ”

“ The eye of [204] one possessing a gift for drawing transmits to the brain the structure of an object, not only as it is outlined against other objects, but also as the different planes of which it is formed recede or advance, slant one way or another, curve or straighten. To a truly gifted draughtsman, such as Leighton, there is an absorbing interest in working out the forms of the objects he sees which delight his sense of beauty,—of guiding his pencil so that it echoes on the paper the gratification with which his senses are inspired through his artistic perceptions. ”

“ You lucky men who have crossed the Tiber—the Vatican of St. Peter, the Courts of St. Onofrio, the Villa Pamfili—where in the world is there anything like them? Where is there a town in which every stone has greater, more splendid things to tell us [281] of every period? Where is there a place where the artist could soar higher than in Rome? Forget that you are practically in an island, and study your Rome; it is invaluable for one's whole life, which is otherwise so commonplace and so small. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Florence and her art had cast a spell on his spirit very early in his existence. He had become especially enamoured of Giotto, the half-Catholic, the half-Greek Giotto. Pheidias had not yet touched him intimately; but his loving, spontaneous appreciation of this Florentine master, whose work in one sense echoes the secret of the noble, serene sense of beauty to be found in that of the Greeks, proves that in very early days Leighton's receptive powers were alive to it. The subject which inspired his first great effort appealed especially to Leighton from more than one point of view. ”

“ Naturally all this is not aimed at the good Führich, but in general against all those who in their infatuation allow themselves, behind the shield of severe sentiments and high efforts, to throw overboard all the difficulties of art. How gladly my thoughts turn away from such unpleasing reflections to you, dearest Friend, who take nature for your model in every part of your pictures, and with your high degree of ability are always the devoted pupil of nature! Keep, I beg you, your grateful pupil in sympathetic remembrance, and never doubt the devotion of your loving friend,
Fred Leighton. ”

“ The treatment of nature in a photographic picture, however admirable and complete, must always be lacking in the evidence of any preference, reverence, or enthusiasm—in the sacred fire, in fact, which inspires the draughtsman's pencil and the painter's brush. Photography is indiscriminate; human art is selective, and is precious as it evinces and secures a choiceness in selection. However truthfully a photograph may record beauty of line and form in nature, it inevitably also records in its want of discrimination any facts which may exist in the view photographed ”

“ Along the heights, nestling in verdure, rise thickly scattered, castellated villas, looking, with their bright, white walls, like smiles on the face of the earth. An epitome of what is rich and joyous and unfettered in landscape. The Alpha and Omega of all that is charming in the Tyrol. Meran!
"I can say no more for it.
"To my mind, it is inferior to Italy only in one respect: it is wanting in that glowing, strongly marked individuality, that earnest beauty, that 'charm that is in melancholy,' which fascinates so powerfully in the land of wine and oil. ”

“ They not only knew him to be great, but knew why he was great. Undoubtedly [viii] as a draughtsman Leighton was unrivalled; but bearing in mind his English contemporaries—Watts, Millais, Holman Hunt, Rossetti, and Burne-Jones—it is not as a painter that even his truest friends would claim for him his right to the exceptional position he undoubtedly occupied.
What was it that gave Leighton this position? He himself was the very last to claim it as a right. His creed and his practice were ever to fight against the weaknesses of his nature rather than to rejoice in its strength. ”

“ When Watts wished it recorded that Leighton's nature was the most beautiful he had ever known, he referred, I think, more specially to that lovable, kind-hearted ingenuousness and noble simplicity which were its deepest roots, notwithstanding a life of conflicts, ambitions, and unparalleled success. There are among those who most honour and love Leighton's memory, and who felt most keenly his loss, poor and unsuccessful artists and students, of whom the world has never heard, but to whom the great President gave of his very best in advice and sympathy. ”

“ When in such union of spirit with Nature, the artist-soul enters his most sacred shrine. An ecstatic joy is kindled by wonder, admiration, adoration, from which joy is inspired a peremptory impulse to endeavour to reproduce in his human handicraft the marvels of creation. Such experiences result from instinctive inevitable conditions, and, coming from the illumination of genius, belong to a higher level than that on which the intellect works ”

“ What artist, however uncatholic in his belief, can contemplate those old Gothic churches, with their glorious tabernacles and other ornaments equally beautiful and equally disused, without painfully feeling what [66] an almost deadly blow the Reformation was to High Art, what a powerful incentive it removed, irrecoverably? Who, in his heart of hearts, can but dwell with melancholy regret on the times when art was coupled with belief, and so many divine works were virtually expressions of faith? What a purifying and ennobling influence was thus exercised over the taste of the artist! ”

“ 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. ”

“ She gives to the artist and to the poet the something, unshared with the ordinary mortal, which controls the inner core of his being, and which is another quantity to be allowed for in his contact with his fellows. It initiates his most passionate, peremptory conditions of temperament, yet it remains partially veiled to himself, in so far that he cannot explain it, nor give it its right place, any more than the lover can explain the glamour which is spread over life by an overpowering first love. ”

“ Dearest Mamma,—I observe in a general way that the climate of Paris is very exciting to my nerves—infinitely more than Rome. The life I lead is one of unprecedented regularity and absence of any kind of excess, yet sometimes in the evening, when I have lit my lamp and my fire and sit down to work, I can neither play, nor read, nor draw, nor do anything for five minutes together for sheer restlessness and fidgets. ”

“ It is very strange that a nation which attained once so high a pitch of civilisation, should either never have known or have entirely forgotten that the human voice is capable of inflection, and what an all-powerful vehicle it may be made of every passionate sentiment or soothing influence. However, much the same thing is noticeable in the peasants near Rome, whose songs consist (within a definite shape) of long-sustained chest notes that are peculiar in the extreme, and though often harsh seem to be wonderfully in harmony with the long unbroken lines of the Campagna. ”