Mrs. Russell Barrington

“ Surely no artist ever existed who evaded being comfortably fitted into either a square or a round hole more completely than did Leighton. Every serious work he undertook was an entirely separate performance from any previous invention—a new venture throughout—and, once decided on, carried through with absolute conformity to the original conception. Therefore any classification, beyond his mere method of working, is more sterile in producing a just estimate of Leighton's art than of those workers who are in the habit of painting pictures in which the same motive recurs. ”

“ This curious fact we see strikingly illustrated in a race which possesses the artistic instinct in certain of its developments in a greater degree than any other in our time—I mean the Japanese. With them the sense of decorative distribution and of subtle loveliness of form and colour is absolutely universal, and expresses itself in every most ordinary appliance of daily life, overflowing, indeed, into every toy or trifle that may amuse an idle moment; and yet majesty and beauty in the human form are as absent from their works as from their persons. ”

“ I have imagined one of the three holy kings, when he sees the Star in the East from the battlements of his palace. The picture is curious and open to much fault-finding, but I think it will please you by a certain poetry in the conception. The shape is long and narrow. The king, half life-size, almost turns his back upon the spectator, and is, in the midst of the dark night, only lit by the mystic rays of the Star. In contrast to this pure light one sees, quite at the bottom, through an arch, into the hot lamp-light, which illuminates a gay orgy. ”

“ Scarborough Evening News, February 3, 1896.
Leighton's death touched, as did his life, all sorts and conditions of men; for he had been the true friend alike of the greatest and of the least. The soil in which true distinction is rooted is of a quality too rich, too fertile to be affected by class prejudice. Leighton's own life was made beautiful by the gratitude he felt for the joy nature's loveliness inspired in his soul, and by the passion to make known [339] through his work the mysterious treasure, the never-failing fountain of delight, ever springing up in his heart. ”

“ This quality in painting alluded to, fits in with that taste in literature which prefers hints to assertions—that insistency on the value of what is, after all, but a fugitive phase in special temperaments—that setting most value on the principle of suggestion rather than of definition, of which we hear so much. The devotees of Maeterlinck delight in the shadow of a thought rather than the thought arrêté; they feel that a further stage of refined culture is reached in worshipping a style you have to get somehow behind, rather than one in which thoughts are fully and frankly expressed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ On the contrary there is, in every stroke, evidence that a fine delicate sense of beauty, a fervent, spontaneous "sincerity of emotion" (to use Leighton's own expression) was ever present, instigating and propelling the conscientious persistency of his efforts. Whether it be a flower, a face, a figure, a landscape, or but a piece of drapery—there is in every sketch in this collection that convincing stamp on the work which proves that the doing of it interested and delighted the artist; the test, in other words, that the work has in it the true fibre of the most genuine art. ”

“ Doubtless it requires a more subtile weapon to catch the fleeting aroma, the hint of a thought trembling in the brain and giving it permanent existence in Art, than to carve the expression of a complete idea explicitly with cameo-like precision, be it in the form of words or a visual impression—the wise sayings of a Solomon or a Bacon, the sculpture of a Pheidias or the painting of a Leonardo da Vinci. ”

“ It is only by concentrating his attention on essentially artistic attributes that you can hope to intensify in the spectator that perception of what is beautiful in the highest, widest, and fullest sense of the word, through which he may enrich his life by the multiplication of precious moments akin to those which the noblest and most entrancing music may bestow on him through different forms of æsthetic emotion. It is in the power to lift us out of ourselves into regions of such pure and penetrating enjoyment that the privilege and greatness of art reside. ”

“ How should they be? for to understand the highest in music, in architecture, sculpture, or painting, the observer or listener must have a spark in his constitution which is a portion of the flame that burned white heat in the soul of the conceiver. How can such an attitude of intimate sympathy belong to the many? It never has, and probably never will. Great men are rare, and those who are mentally or organically made to comprehend them are rare also. The great can afford to wait because they are immortal. In all one's dealings with Leighton what did one find? ”

“ Every touch a true artist ever puts upon canvas is a record of an impression—whether that impression comprises the structure, light and shade, true colour and tone, all combined,—or only certain surface qualities extracted from its entirety and enforced so that the most obvious appearances start into relief, giving doubtless a sense of vitality to a work, but remaining nevertheless only a partial record of the object. Needless to say, Leighton sought to record his impressions of nature in their entirety, and this necessitated a balancing of their component attributes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It has always seemed to me that the best way to acquaint young people with pictures which they are not able to see is to put before them photographs of the originals, which, besides giving design, form, and light and shade, with absolute fidelity, render, in a wonderful way, the executive physiognomy of the work; and by the side of these photographs free, but faithful, coloured sketches of the pictures should hang, giving the scheme, harmony, and tone of the colour, but not, like finished copies, professing an identity with the original, which is never achieved. ”

“ Not for one single week have I had my proper complement of people in the house, and I have done every species of house-work myself, from cleaning the cellar and kitchen to washing the tea-cups; it is a state of things as incredible as the colour of the autumn woods, and as peculiar, thank God, to America. I am now making my last experiment by trying coloured servants. Their manners and deportment are generally much better than those of either the Irish or American, and they seem capable of personal attachment to their employers, which neither of the other races are. ”

“ I am the first to admit and admire the intimate connection which existed formerly between architecture and painting: to say "architecture and pictures," is to beg the whole question. In condemning the loose practice of modern times, you cannot propose upholding for admiration the mere fact that in old times picture and wall were sometimes one, but no doubt allude with just admiration to the harmony existing between them, in the best examples, and to the wise adaptation of the one to the other. ”

“ The actual visible facts in the aspects of nature, which were of such entrancing interest to Leighton, become of less and less interest to the wide public as the human intelligence is trained more and more through books, less and less through the eye; our modern conditions making the world we live in, more and more ugly and uninspiring to the echoing tune of nature within us. ”

“ This is the great artist as I knew him."
Singularly chary of accepting favours or putting himself under any obligation where he did not feel certain he could requite it by any feeling or action of his own, the response Leighton's nature made when any person, thing, or place gave him delight was that of a spontaneous, unstinting gratitude. Never did any one enjoy more fully the best of blessings—a grateful heart. ”

“ I say, then, that in a work of art the elements of emotion based on human sympathies are not of a loftier order than those arising out of abstract sublimity or loveliness of form, but that the presence of these elements in such a work, while not raising it as an artistic creation, does impart to it an added power of appeal, and that, therefore, a work in which these elements are combined will be with the great majority of mankind a more potent engine of delight than one which should rest exclusively on abstract qualities. ”

“ Living in Italy when his feelings were most sensitive to impressions, the origin of the suggestions he imbibed is to be found in her atmosphere, colouring, and the scenes which surrounded him when his imagination was most free and fertile. Later, when he lived in England, his travels in Italy and Greece supplied him with the subjects for the most beautiful sketches he made direct from nature. No one, I believe, has ever painted the luminous quality of white, as it is seen under heated sunlight in the South, with the same charm as Leighton. ”

“ He wrote, "The thoroughness of all the great masters is so pervading a quality that I look upon them all as forming one aristocracy." In his sketches alone did Leighton relax from the strain which absolute thoroughness involves; and then, in all the fervour of æsthetic inspiration, colour would fly on canvas, chalk or paper, with a charm of quality and [21] exquisite grace of line and form which, as Mr. Briton Rivière remarks, is the very best that can be obtained from a great artist thoroughly trained, but which condition Leighton would never admit into what he considered his serious work. ”

“ Leighton,—I don't know which to admire most—the "sketch," as you call it (it seems "heroic" in size even now) , or your great kindness in sending it to me. Now that I may enjoy it at my leisure—and I take my leisure very often—it seems finer even than I thought it was. Not merely the spirit of the antique, but the antique itself, and the "antique" I mean is the everlasting, the best mortal may ever hope to make. ”

“ During these fifty years he has not only ripened to the full his splendid gifts as an interpreter, ever interpreting the noblest works in the noblest manner, leading his hearers to their better comprehension; not only marked his place in the front ranks of living composers by works instinct with fire and imagination; but shown us also, as a man, how much high gifts are enhanced by modesty, and how good a thing to see is the life of an Artist who has never paltered with the dignity of his Art. ”

“ Whatever of Greek work has been preserved to us, temple or statue, vessel or implement, is marked with the same attributes of stately and rhythmic beauty; in all their creations, from the highest to the lowest, one spirit lives, and whatever be the rank of each of these creations in the hierarchy of works of art, in one thing they are even-born and kin—in the spirit of loveliness. And of the dignity of this artistic instinct, which they regarded as their birthright, they were, as I have said, proudly conscious. ”

“ In a like spirit Leighton sought to arrive at viewing art; and what Lord Acton sought to effect by the general culture of men's minds and natures through reading, Leighton sought to effect in his special vocation by inducing other artists to study all that was greatest in Art from a wide and unprejudiced point of view—making it their own, so to speak, by thoroughly realising and appreciating the qualities in it which make it great. Each true masterpiece in Art, he urged, should be thoroughly taken in, and should be the beginning of a new effort. ”

“ It seems to me, on the contrary, to be a harmful one, inasmuch as it misdirects the mind of a people, already little open to pure artistic emotion, as to the special function of Art. This can, of course, only be the doing of something which it alone can achieve. Now, direct ethical teaching is specially the province of the written and the spoken word. A page or two from the pen of a great and nobly-inspired moralist—a Newman, say, or a Liddon, or a Martineau—can fire us more potently and definitely for good than a whole gallery of paintings. ”

“ Time after time, in listening to the description—the enthusiastic description—of a picture, we become aware that the points emphasised by the speaker are such as did not specially call for treatment in art at all, were often not fitted for expression through form or colour, their natural vehicle being not paint but ink, which is the proper and appointed conveyor of abstract thoughts and concrete narrative. I have heard pictures extolled as works of genius simply because they expressed, not because they nobly clothed in forms of art, ideas not beyond the reach of the average penny-a-liner. ”

“ That marble, bronze, or terra-cotta may, under cunning hands, become vehicles, for those who have eyes to see, of emotions, æsthetic and poetic, not less lofty than those which are stirred in us by the verse of a Dante or a Milton, or by strains of noblest music, of this the consciousness is for practical purposes non-existent. For sculpture, for an art through which alone the name of Greece would have been famous for all time, there is, outside portraiture, even now, under conditions admittedly improved, little or no field in this country. ”

“ In this magnificent song of praise he enumerates the virtues of the Athenians; he shows them heroic, wise, just, tolerant, lovers of beauty, philosophers—in all things foremost amongst men. Mark this! At a celebration of the most moving solemnity—in a breathing space between two acts of a gigantic international struggle for hegemony—you have here a great statesman enumerating the titles of his fellow-citizens to headship among the nations, and placing not at the end of his panegyric and as an oratorical embellishment, but in its very heart and centre, these words: "We love the beautiful." ”

“ No rule without an exception—Leighton did not bear with resignation the sorrows of his friends, nor of those he pitied as overweighted and in any need of help which he could give. No better proof exists of the fineness, the distinction of a nature, or the reverse, than the effect which misfortune or suffering produces on it. Pity with Leighton was ever allied with profound respect. He gave help as one indulging himself in a privilege rather than as one conferring a benefit. ”

“ The most of the latter they possess, is that they serve as themes for some good Greek play, which had better have been burnt, as they have hampered the genius of modern Europe and taught us nothing. Had only Homer and the lyrics survived, we should have done better. At all events, if a man must illustrate, why does he not illustrate Shakespeare, a bigger man head and shoulders than any of the Greek tragedists? But it appears to me you are made for a much better and more intellectual purpose than illustrating anybody. You have the eye to see and power to represent what you see. ”