The Life, Letters and Work of Frederic Leighton Volume I Part 29

How I envy you this great work! I cannot deny that I rejoice a little, secretly, that you are tied down to _buon_ fresco, for I have a pa.s.sion (unfortunately an altogether unsatisfied one) for this material. You may be quite sure that if it is in any way possible for me, I shall make a little excursion to Cologne in order to offer my humble a.s.sistance; nothing could be more delightful to me.

Some works of yours have just come to Rome; ill.u.s.trations to a prayer-book, engraved (I believe) by Keller. When did you make these charming drawings? The one with the blossoming staff and the little Madonna is quite specially sympathetic to me. The things are, however, engraved without feeling or delicacy.

With what you say about the advantage of growing older I quite agree, and I am in a certain respect anxious for the time when I shall find my _niveau_, and shall be able to work with more peace and equanimity. I have been for some time in a very painful position--I feel so humbly my incapacity even from afar off to approach the entrancing beauty of nature, that I have not the courage to embark upon any large work. For some time I have scarcely composed at all; partly, it is true, because I have no time, but partly also because I do not feel myself in a position to embody an idea properly. I know that such a condition is morbid, and hope to extricate myself from it in time. It arises also partly from the fact that my _individuality_ is not yet sufficiently developed; I see it coming, but it takes a very long time. I know already, on the smallest computation, _what_ I want, but I do not know _how_ I am to accomplish it.

I went recently to see Cornelius, who is always genial and charming. He is drawing on one of the Redelli for the Campo Santo. Rich and spirited in invention and arrangement, the form in _details_, however, is very badly drawn--heads that are unpermissible; he treats G.o.d's nature quite cavalierly. I saw at his house a composition by a certain Woredle (or some such name) of Vienna, a pupil of Fuhrich, the subject taken from the Apocalypse: "There shall be wonders." Above, the Saviour, in the usual att.i.tude, with the usual flowing garment; to the right and left, Mary and John, in their respective usual att.i.tudes; at their feet four angels blowing trumpets, by Cornelius; in the background a number of comets; lying about in the middle and foreground, a quant.i.ty of figures, which have been collected from different works of Cornelius', strike convulsive att.i.tudes on the floor; for the rest, the whole is constructed with appalling academic execution and lifelessness. Cornelius seemed to think it quite right; I consider it difficult, with reverence and love, to complete the head of one girl; for that reason I am not fond of going to him, for although personally he is extremely sympathetic to me, I cannot help feeling that I do not fit in with him, and am obliged to dissemble. But you must be quite weary of this chattering letter, dear Master; I will close.

Remember me most kindly to your wife and children, and rely always upon the friendship of your grateful pupil,

LEIGHTON.

_Translation._]

_Thursday, September 3, 1857._

DEAR FRIEND AND MASTER,--I was, as usual, most delighted to receive your cordial letter of 21st August; I am touched by your constant friendship, but also somewhat ashamed that you should treat your much indebted pupil almost as an equal and counsellor. I have the greatest desire to see your second cartoon, but I am very much afraid that this year it will be quite impossible, for I am going on a journey in quite the opposite direction; I am shortly going to Africa, partly to make some landscape studies, but also to make acquaintance with that very interesting race, but _not_ in order to become a painter of Bedouins. It was my intention, as I am starting immediately, not to write till I came back, in order that I might have something to tell you; however, the following has suddenly made me change my mind; the fat, affected, tailor-like, civil-spoken little Jew visited me recently and told me you want to make inquiries about wall painting, and that I might tell you, if I was writing, that Conture has just gone away. This impelled me to write immediately. Will you forgive me, for old friendship's sake, if I put in a word here, to which you need not give the smallest attention? I want to protest vehemently, dear Master, against all _oil_-painting on _walls_; and that, not because fresco painting has sufficed for the greatest works of the greatest masters, but on account of the _positive disadvantages_ of oils. How, in effect, do the two materials stand to one another? Fresco is certainly the one material for monuments.

First, because it is the most suitable for a broad, ma.s.sy, imposing _form_, for in no material can one pursue form so completely _without losing colour_; secondly, because by no other method can one attain such masterly, earnest, quiet, virile effect in colour; thirdly, however, and princ.i.p.ally, because fresco _is visible from all points alike_, this advantage is immeasurable for architectural art. What, on the other hand, are the advantages of oil? Only one occurs to me and that is quite illusory, _i.e._ you have a wider range of colour; but all the colours that an oil palette has in advance of fresco are, for fresco, superfluous if not pernicious.

Superfluous, because the broken, fine grey tones which have such an infinite charm in easel pictures, and which counteract the otherwise too great brilliance of the material, are quite superfluous in a painting where _all tones_ are dull and solid. Pernicious, where they would be applicable, because they might mar the majestic peace of the work. And then it should be remembered that the limited scale of the fresco palette, so _far as it extends_, is unsurpa.s.sable for glow and atmosphere and strength. t.i.tian's frescoes at Padua in the Tenola St. Antonio rival his oil-paintings in colour. M.

Angelo's "Madonna in the Last Judgment" might (for colour) be by Tintoretto, and many figures on this glorious wall are as glowing as t.i.tian's! As regards the disadvantages of oil-painting, I can only say that they often blister in the shadows, and that one can _only see them from one point of view_. I know very well that fresco is exposed to damp, but one can, indeed one must, have one's wall examined before one begins to work, and if it is well dried and "drained" there is no danger; at the worst, one can cover one's wall with sheets of lead; it has been discovered that this was often done in Pompeii. Or one can also (there are instances) paint upon a specially prepared canvas away from the wall. But you know all this better than I. Have you forgiven me, dear Friend? I could not forbear from saying this, and rely upon your indulgence.

Do not allow Schlosser to mislead you about my work. I daub on steadily, but am by a very long way not contented.

I send these lines to Frankfurt in the hope that they will be forwarded to you.

I shall stay some weeks in Algiers--can I do anything for you?

in that case send me a line. Till the _1st October_ a letter will find me; address, Poste Restante, Algiers.

All good luck be with you on your holidays, and may you gain the desired strength.

Keep in remembrance your loving pupil,

FRED LEIGHTON.

21 RUE PIGALLE.

ALGIERS, _Friday, 18th_.

DEAREST MAMMA,--I arrived here only last Monday, as the little delay about the money made me lose the boat by which I intended to sail; having, however, nothing in my studio that was dry enough or otherwise fit to work on, I left Paris all the same and visited Avignon, Nimes, and Arles, most interesting towns which I had long desired to see. Avignon reminded me so vividly of certain parts of Rome that it was all I could do not to take a place for Civita Vecchia and succ.u.mb to my longing desire to see Italy once more.

I have not the least idea (especially in this hot weather) how to describe to you this strange and picturesque town in which I have taken up my temporary quarters; everything where the African element has been preserved is so entirely new, so unlike anything that you have seen, that I see no chance of putting before your mind any living image of the thing. Before going further I may as well tell you, dearest Mammy, that although it is very hot I am perfectly well and have an enormous appet.i.te. I walk from six to eight hours every day, and bathe regularly in the sea.

Algiers occupies one horn of a most beautiful bay, thickly studded with villas and farms, and reminding one greatly of Italy. The aspect of the town, however, shows you at once, and from a great distance, that you are in no European land. You must know that oriental houses have no roofs, but are surmounted by terraces, that they have no windows, the rooms being lit from the inner court, and that they are painted three times a year of the purest white, so that on approaching Algiers, rising as it does steeply up the hillside, it looks from the sea and under an African sun like a pyramid of alabaster or marble, or, as some poet or other has said of it, like a swan about to spread her wings. The effect of this whiteness glittering out from the green and purple hills and hanging over a dark-blue sea is really most beautiful; unfortunately, however, the whole of the lower part of the town that runs along the port has been so completely Europeanized that, but for a rather pretty mosque on the waterside, you might fancy you were at Havre or any other French seaport town. As soon, however, as you get up into the Arab town, your illusions are not only restored but enhanced, for a.s.suredly nothing could be more perfectly picturesque and striking than the steep, tortuous streets that climb up to the Casbah, or fortress, at the top of the town. The upper storeys of the houses jut out into the street in such a manner that they constantly meet, forming an archway underneath, and yet the streets are never dark, from the dazzling whiteness of all the walls, which reflect the light in every direction and gild and brighten the darkest corners. Fancy, in the midst of all this gleaming white, the gorgeous effect produced by the varied colours of oriental costumes and complexion: the copper-coloured Arabs, the sallow Jews, the ebony negroes; and then the frequent display of every kind of fruit--crimson tomatoes and purple aubergines, emerald and golden melons, glowing oranges, luminous green grapes, and to relieve the blaze of ardent colour, the tender ivory tones of the tuberose, and the soft milk-white jessamine. I don't think a colourist could have a more precious lesson than seeing this place; you see in half-an-hour a sufficient number of fine harmonies to set you up for a year. Not less striking than the display of colour is the variety of types and costumes. Arabs of the desert, with their lofty bearing and ample drapery, the tattered, brawny Kabyles, the richly dressed Jewesses, the negresses, dressed in long indigo-coloured draperies, and with bracelets of horn round their ankles; in fact, you cannot imagine a greater medley than is presented by a street in the Arab quarter of the town. It has this drawback, that in the midst of such an _embarras de richesses_, I don't know how I shall ever be able to work; as yet I have not seen a pencil even, indeed I have not been off my feet since I arrived, and my head is in a perfect muddle. I spend next week in the interior of the country, and when I come back I shall have a fortnight in which I hope to do something. Getting anybody to sit here is exceedingly difficult, and costs mints. The price of living here is the same as Paris, but anything at all extra is very dear; a horse or a cab to get to some place beyond a walk is very expensive, and my consumption of drink (lemonade, coffee, &c., for pure water is not wholesome here) from six in the morning till bedtime is something incredible. Good-bye, dearest Mother, I will write a longer letter next time. I have no news from India. Best love to all, from your most affectionate boy.

If you hear from Lina, _mind_ you let me know, as I am most anxious for news.

I am so sorry the ink is so pale. I have written over half the letter, but it is not much use; next time I will have darker ink.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SKETCH IN OILS. ALGIERS. 1895]

ALGIERS, _Monday 29, 1857_.

DEAREST MAMMA,--Poor Lina,[70] what a state of wretched suspense and terror she must live in! what a frightful crisis it is! G.o.d grant all may end well. Have you heard lately? Pray let me know whatever you can; at this distance I can get only the most salient facts, and am most eager to hear some more circ.u.mstantial account of the progress of affairs. Poor Sutherland, I often think of his kind grey eyes and manly carriage; what a hara.s.sing, anxious life he must lead!

Before I go any further I must ensure saying a thing that I have been intending to tell for some time past, and which has always been driven out of my head by the more immediate subject of my letter. I am by no means certain that I have not already mentioned it; I wish to be quite certain. The fact is that as besides corresponding with you I write often to Mrs.

Sartoris, and still oftener to Henry Greville, and have continually much the same to tell all of you, I often cannot remember to whom I have written what, and I am therefore uncertain whether I told you that Romeo and Juliet and Pan and Venus are by this time exciting (let us hope) the admiration of the citizens of America at the town of Philadelphia. It costs me nothing at all either to send or to fetch, and the percentage is ten per cent. I sent them off the end of last month, just before leaving Paris for Africa. Tom Taylor is on the committee, and I think the speculation may turn out good, particularly if Mrs. Kemble, who is in America now, takes an interest in them.

Putting aside all question of anxiety and sorrow, I am delighted with my visit to Algiers. I feel that, though I have as yet been unable to touch a pencil, I have already taken a great deal of new stuff, and if I were to leave Africa with an empty sketch-book, I should still return to my easel improved in knowledge of form and combination of colours. Still it is a great mortification to me to see such fine types around me without any means of getting them to sit, an operation to which they have an insuperable objection; if it were not vexatious, it would be quite amusing to see how they slink away when they perceive you are trying to sketch them.

Of course, one of my great desires was to see if possible a Moorish _interieur_; and in this, though it is difficult to achieve, I have been very fortunate, through the instrumentality of a young native, with whom I became accidentally acquainted. I have made the acquaintance of one Achmet, son of Ali Pasha, a decayed native gentleman, now holding office in the French customs, but once very well to do in the world. I have been twice to his house, which I may as well describe to you, as it is a type of all Moorish houses in this part of the world. The whole of the centre of the building is taken up by a little _cortile_, open to the sky and surrounded by two storeys of arcades of a graceful shape, on to which the rooms open as in Greek houses. These arcades are painted pure white, and are relieved by fillets of coloured porcelain tiles that have a most original and charming effect; the first-floor gallery is closed in by a breast-high bal.u.s.trade, elegantly carved and painted blue or green; the top of the house is invariably an open terrace, adorned with flowers and shrubs. The rooms, I said, open on the corridors and have no windows (except little peeping holes) on to the street; they are consequently always wrapped in a sort of clear, cool, reflected twilight that is inexpressibly delightful and soothing in hot, glaring weather.

Each room takes up one side of the house, and is therefore a long narrow strip; immediately opposite the door is an alcove, containing a raised, handsomely cushioned and carpeted divan, and ornamented invariably with three florid gilt looking-gla.s.ses. At the foot of the raised divan is another lower one for those who like low seats; other such divans run along the wall, and a few highly wrought, embossed chests and other oriental articles of furniture complete the decoration of the room. In such a room Achmet Oulid received us, putting before us delicious hot coffee in tiny cups with filagree stands, a delightful kind of peach jam, and the pipe of peace.

You would have laughed to see your son lolling on a Turkey carpet and puffing away at a long pipe. Our host has the dearest little daughter, ten years old, whom by a great stretch of courtesy we were allowed to see. By-the-bye, nearly all Arab children are lovely, and look great darlings in their Turkish dress.

My paper is coming to an end and the boat does not wait, so I close. I shall write you another letter before I leave this and tell you more of what I have done and seen.

Good-bye, dearest Mammy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SKETCH IN OILS. ALGIERS. 1895]

Leighton refers to this visit in a letter to Mrs. Mark Pattison (1879), who was about to write an account of his art. "This visit made a deep impression on me; I have loved 'The East,' as it is called, ever since. By-the-bye, I drew here my (almost) only large water-colour drawing 'A Negro Festival' (the picture Leighton always referred to as 'The n.i.g.g.e.rs'), which was thought very well of by my friends."

To his sister in India he wrote:--

Since I last wrote I have spent a month or six weeks in Algeria, and have opened an acquaintance with the East which I hope to keep up, not only from the pleasure but from the instruction I have derived from even a short visit. My next journey, however, will be to the old, original cradle of Western Art--to Egypt, which country, as I shall visit it under widely different circ.u.mstances from what you did, poor dear, and I trust in much better health, will of course strike me in a very different manner. There are many things in the Arab quarter in Algiers which will probably stand comparison with Cairo, but besides that, Egypt has far more physiognomy as a country than the coast of Algeria. I am anxious to study the Egyptian type, which is truly grand and wonderful.

However, these are plans for a tolerably remote day, as I shall spend my next winter in my dear, dear old Rome, to which I am attached beyond measure; indeed, Italy altogether has a hold on my heart that no other country ever can have (except, of course, my own); and although, as I just now said, I was most delighted with Africa, and have not a moment to look back to that was not agreeable, yet there is an intimate little corner in my affections into which it could never penetrate. If I am as faithful to my wife as I am to the places I love, I shall do very well. What the first impression of an Eastern country is, you already know by experience as far as the mere aspect goes, but to understand my sensations you must translate your own into a far brighter key. In my case everything was for me: a decent pa.s.sage, a glorious day, a light heart, and a firm determination to enjoy myself; to this add that more rapid apprehension of what is beautiful which belongs to an artist's eye, and is the natural consequence of the constant exercise and cultivation of that faculty.

I saw in Algiers many things that interested me, very much _du point de vue moeurs fetes_, with strange music on queer instruments, odd dances, odder singing. The music of the Moors is altogether very strange; it is monotonous in the extreme, fitful, and sometimes apparently without any kind of shape, and yet there is something very characteristic and almost attaching about it. This applies only to instrumental music, for as for the voice, they seem to consider it only as a shriller instrument, using always at full pitch, with neck outstretched and eyes half shut, always from the throat and always higher than they can go. 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 pa.s.sionate 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.

_a propos_ of chanting, I saw a very striking thing one day in Algiers, in the shape of a Rhapsodist, who recited, with an uncouth instrumental accompaniment, a long string of strophes describing (I am told) the life and deeds of some hero; it was exactly what a recital of the Homeric poems must have been amongst the early Greeks. The Homer stood up in the midst of a motley and most picturesque group of breathless listeners, and chanted, with a sort of animated monotony, verses of about two lines each, heightening the colour of his tale by gesticulations. After each strophe the music struck in, consisting of two queerly shaped tambours and a shrill flute.

After the performance, or rather, during the pauses, money was collected in the tambourines. Homer (if he ever lived) no doubt did the same.

On his return to Paris Leighton wrote to Steinle:--

_Translation._]

PARIS, _October 22, 1857_.

MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,--Since I know your industry better than any one else, and also know that at this moment you are quite particularly busy, I cannot be surprised that you have not answered my letter of last month; however, some warm expressions slipped from me in that letter which you may perhaps have taken amiss; lest this should be indeed the case, I hasten, my dear Master, to make you an ample apology and to beg you not to take amiss what I may have said too hastily; but if it is not so, do send me a short note that my doubt may be solved; for it is an excessively painful idea to me that a single word from my mouth should have displeased you.

I have just come back from Africa, where I have spent some weeks with extreme pleasure, and, I believe, not without great benefit; indeed, I might say that an artist cannot perfect his sense of form so well anywhere as in the East; the types of characteristic stamp which meet one's eye at every step are a wonder to see, and of the simple grandeur of the costumes one can form no previous conception--one sees real Michael Angelos running about the streets.

I have done little or almost nothing, for one cannot possibly induce the Arabs to sit; however, I believe I have learnt a great deal by my observations; I have already made a resolution to become acquainted with the Egyptian race in the near future. But now I must see to it that I produce something this winter, for time goes bye with giant strides, and will not be called back again.

And you, my dear friend? what are you working at now? How I should like to see your second cartoon! but unfortunately that is one of the impossibilities. What has happened about the church you were to paint? Has anything been settled? Once more I beg you to write me a few lines to a.s.sure me that you are not angry at my indiscretion.

Please remember me most kindly to your wife. And keep in kindly remembrance, your grateful pupil,

LEIGHTON.

And again:--

_Translation._]

PARIS, 21 RUE PIGALLE, _November 2, 1857_.