The Life, Letters and Work of Frederic Leighton Volume II Part 27

Leighton in fun always called her "the little tee-to-tum," or when she wore a large hat, "the mushroom." As he felt vitality waning and mental effort a greater strain, the little family of Pullens had to Leighton somewhat the same resting charm that Italy had in early days, when he turned from the German austerity in study to the relaxation of the _dolce far niente_ of Italian national life. "I go to see them,"

he used to say, "when I want to let my back hair down and get off the stilts." When Leighton was dying, his sister, Mrs. Sutherland Orr, took Dorothy into his room. He was too ill to speak, but only smiled to her in answer to her saying, "If I have or ever will do anything worth doing, I owe it all to you--everything I owe to you." It is almost unnecessary, as it is distasteful, to mention that this beautiful paternal att.i.tude Leighton displayed towards these orphans was made the subject of ugly gossip--for are there not always the _miserables_ of the world who seek the ugly rather than the beautiful?

misinterpreting the beautiful so that it should come within the range of their scandalous arrows, more especially when the darts attack a man in the high position Leighton held. Some of these offshoots of envy and jealousy came within earshot of Leighton's sisters, who thought it well to warn him in a letter that such malice was in the air. He wrote a lengthy answer, ending with the following sentence: "But let me turn away from the whole thing, it has pained me more than enough. I implore you not to reopen it. On the only thing that matters, you are _absolutely a.s.sured, if you believe in my honour_. If you hear these rumours again, meet them with a flat, ungarnished denial. Let that suffice--it does for me." To a lady friend he wrote still more explicitly, in order, as he said, that there should exist in his own handwriting an implicit and unmitigated denial of the malicious falsehood. Leighton never knew under whose auspices this scandal was conducted. As is the case invariably, it was impossible to put the finger exactly on the culprit--for these fulsome things have to be propagated under the rose, in order that they should get a firm root before an authoritative denial can be given. However, after Leighton's death, the lie was stated more boldly--even directly to his two sisters. It is necessary, therefore, to include in the account of his life the full and truthful version of the kind and fatherly protection Leighton gave to this family.

The interests of the Kyrle Society were another cause which I had in common with Leighton. He spoke at the first public meeting that was held in the Kensington Town Hall on January 27, 1881, and I possess an interesting correspondence with him on the subject, which s.p.a.ce will not allow me to quote. The important matter contained in it appears in the following correspondence between Mr. T.C. Horsfall, the chief mover in establishing the Art Museum and Galleries in Manchester, and Leighton, together with a discussion on other vital points connected with Art:--

_April 7, about 1880._

DEAR SIR,--I am probably too late to be of any use, but have nevertheless much pleasure in a.s.suring you once again of the sympathy with which I view your endeavours to bring the refining influences of Art in all its forms, and, so to speak, in co-operation on the ma.s.ses in the vast industrial centre from which you write. I believe that in seeking to elicit and to cultivate their sense of what is beautiful you are opening up to them a deep source of enjoyment, and by opposing good to bad influences, rendering them great and lasting service.--Yours very faithfully,

FRED LEIGHTON.

_February 17, 1881._

I have carefully read over the programme of your enterprise, and there is much in it with which I can warmly sympathise. I desire nothing more deeply than to see the love and knowledge of Art penetrate into the ma.s.ses of the people in this country--there is no end which I would more willingly serve; but there is in your programme a paragraph which I cannot too emphatically repudiate--that, namely, which excludes from Art, as far as the public is concerned, that which is the root of the finest Art as Art, the human form, the n.o.blest of visible things. That you should sternly and stringently exclude all work which reveals an offensive aim or prurient mind is what I should be the first to claim, but that you should lay down as a corner-stone of your scheme an enactment which would exclude by implication more than half the loftiest work we owe to Art--_nearly all Michael Angelo_, much of Raphael's best, Sebastiano del Piomba's "Raising of Lazarus," t.i.tian's "Bacchus and Ariadne,"

Botticelli's "Birth of Venus"--this is indeed a measure from which I must most distinctly dissociate myself, and which makes it impossible for me to connect my name with an enterprise which would else command my sympathy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STUDY IN COLOUR FOR "GREEK GIRLS PLAYING AT BALL." 1889 By permission of Mrs. Stewart Hodgson]

_From the "Manchester Courier," August 30, 1890._

SIR FREDERIC LEIGHTON ON THE MANAGEMENT OF ART GALLERIES.

To the Editor of the _Manchester Courier_.

SIR,--On the 4th and 6th inst. I published two long letters on the management of art galleries, of some part of which this is a summary:--No one can intelligently and fully enjoy any picture or statue unless he has some measure of three kinds of knowledge. (1) He must know something about the subject represented, or he cannot enjoy the expression by the work of the artist's feeling and thought; (2) he must know something of the processes of the art in which the artist has worked, or he cannot know what effects the artist sought or might have sought; (3) he must know something of the history of the art, or he cannot understand what elements in the work are due to the artist himself and what to his time and place; or enjoy at all some of the finest works ever produced. For the giving of the second and third of these three kinds of knowledge there ought to be subsidiary collections in our Manchester galleries, kept distinct from the princ.i.p.al collection, and for the giving of the first kind there ought to be several distinct subsidiary collections, of which some should be for the purpose of giving knowledge of flowers, birds, trees, and the other beautiful objects which are "elements of landscape." As a very large proportion of the people of all large towns are ignorant of all that is interesting in nature, and of all that is n.o.blest and most interesting in history and in contemporary life, and as pictures can very effectively give some knowledge both of nature and of the deeds of men while fulfilling their special function, which is to give certain kinds of aesthetic pleasure, the princ.i.p.al collections in our galleries ought to be used for the purpose of giving knowledge of nature and of n.o.ble human nature.

A gallery of good pictures of the kind would, by reason of the interest of the subjects represented, attract so much attention that the public would to a far larger extent than now feel the influence of the artistic qualities of pictures. In order to obtain pictures of suitable subjects, the directors of art galleries, instead of only buying pictures in exhibitions and studios as they now do, should, as a rule, revert to the custom which prevailed in the ages when art influenced life deeply, and should ask artists to paint pictures of prescribed subjects. I believe that they would get thus better pictures and at lower prices. Many artists certainly would be at their best when they knew they were working to enlighten a great community, and would gladly accept a moderate price for a picture ordered for a public gallery.

I sent a copy of my letters to Sir Frederic Leighton, and asked him if he would let me have his opinion respecting the princ.i.p.al suggestions contained in them. With the great kindness which distinguishes him, Sir Frederic Leighton has written me the following letter, which contains advice so valuable that I am sure every person in Manchester who cares for art will be glad to have an opportunity of reading it:--

"DEAR MR. HORSFALL,--I must apologise for my very long delay in answering your letter--a delay due in great part to lack of time, but in part also to the fact that your questions could not be answered hastily, or without due consideration. I may say at the outset that I very warmly appreciate the depth of your interest in the subject of art, and the constancy of your efforts to spread its influence in Manchester; and I am glad to be able to add that on not a few points, I find myself in harmony with your views.

"It is evidently not possible for me to touch, within the compa.s.s of a letter, upon more than one or two of the matters with which you deal in your two long communications to the Manchester press; and, indeed, the question on which you mainly dilate, and in regard to which I am not wholly at one with you, would require to be dealt with at far greater length than is possible to me here. I must content myself with saying what little seems to me sufficient to indicate the grounds of my dissent from you. But first I should like to say a word in pa.s.sing on the vexed subject of _copies_.

"There can be no doubt that it would be an immense advantage to those who cannot travel--that is to say, to the enormous majority of men--to bring before their eyes, through reproductions--if these reproductions were absolutely faithful--the masterpieces to which distance deprives them of access. This is, in the case of sculpture and architectural detail, in a large measure achieved by the means of plaster casts, though it is needless to point out that the capacity of the material robs the reproduction of much of the life and light of the original. With pictures the case is different. The subtle and infinite charm which resides in the _handiwork_ of a master, and in the absence of which half the personality of his work is lost, can hardly ever be rendered by a copyist. For this reason the overwhelming majority of even reasonable copies is to my mind worse than useless. Such copies can kindle no enthusiasm, and they virtually misinform the student. 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 ident.i.ty with the original, which is never achieved.

"Turning now to what you say on the subject of the acquisition of works for a public gallery, I should at once dissuade you from any idea of giving definite commissions--I mean commission to paint specially selected subjects. I have always felt very strongly that artistic work, to be of real value, must be the outcome of entirely spontaneous impulse in an artist. I believe that in the immense majority of cases work done under any other conditions lacks vitality and sincerity, and will not show the worker at his best. A subject which does not impose itself unbidden on the artist will never elicit his full powers. I have myself on that ground for many years past invariably declined to paint under any kind of restriction.

"Neither does your idea of--practically--refusing encouragement to any work which does not commemorate a n.o.ble deed, and, if possible, the n.o.ble deed of a well-known personage, commend itself to me. 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 n.o.bly-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. This does not, of course, mean that a moral lesson may not indirectly be conveyed by a work of art, and thereby enhance its purely moral value. _But it cannot be the highest function of any form of expression to convey that which can be more forcibly, more clearly, and more certainly brought home through another channel._ You may no more make this direct _explicit_ ethical teaching a test of worth in a painted work than you may do so in the case of instrumental music; indeed by doing so you will turn the attention of those before whom you place it from the true character of its excellence--you will, so to speak, mis-focus their emotional sensibility. 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 n.o.blest and most entrancing music may bestow on him through different forms of aesthetic 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. If, in a fine painting, a further wholly human source of emotion is present, and if that emotion is more vividly kindled in the spectator by the fact that he is attuned to receive it by the excitement of aesthetic perception through the beauty of the work of art as such, that work will gain no doubt in interest and in width of appeal. But it will not therefore be of a loftier order than a great work in architecture or music--than the Parthenon, for instance, or a symphony of Beethoven, neither of which preaches a direct moral lesson.

"But I am being led away into undue length without the possibility, after all, of doing more than roughly indicate the grounds of my dissent from a rather vital article of your creed--a dissent which will, I am afraid, jar on you in proportion to the great sincerity with which you hold your faith. I may say, by the way, that I dwelt at rather greater length on this very subject in my first presidential address to the Royal Academy, delivered on 16th December 1879.--And, herewith, I remain, dear Mr. Horsfall, yours very truly,

FRED LEIGHTON.

"2 HOLLAND PARK ROAD, KENSINGTON, "_August 18, 1890_."

Examples of the kind of copies which Sir F. Leighton recommends can be seen in the Art Museum in No. 1 Room. We have there a photograph of the "Adoration of the Magi" of Paul Veronese, with a series of studies by Mr. F. Shields of the composition, the light and shade, and the arrangement of colour in the picture.

These copies suffice to prove that such a collection as Sir F.

Leighton recommends would be of the greatest value and interest.

May I say with regard to two points in the letter, that my proposal to use some parts of the collections in our galleries for the purpose of revealing the beauty of nature and the greatness of human nature, does not involve any belief that the giving of ethical teaching ought to be one of the functions of pictures, and that the proposal is made partly for the purpose of increasing the width of appeal of works of art. While trying to make that appeal reach a large part of the community, we may usefully teach, by means of other parts of the collections, that the excellence of paintings has no relation to ethical teaching.

With regard to the influence on the artist of the choice by others of his subjects, I think that Sir F. Leighton is misled by his own great gifts. A man of remarkably wide culture, and of great poetical power, he has been enabled, by the great range and strength of his imagination, to choose subjects giving ample scope for the exercise of the qualities peculiar to the painter, and yet appealing strongly to the powers of thought and feeling of all fairly educated people. To such a man, and to such a man only, spontaneous impulse can now be a sufficient guide in the choice of his subject; and to such a man, and only to such a man, the choice of his subject by other persons of intelligence would be a harmful restriction. In every picture gallery it is but too obvious that the majority of even able painters, though unrestricted by the will of any committee, are impeded by more hampering restrictions than any intelligent committee would impose, and are unable to find subjects interesting both to themselves and to others. For many able painters the intelligent choice by others of subjects for their work would remove, and not impose, restrictions. It must be remembered that the subjects of the works of Pheidias, of Cimabue, of Giotto, and indeed those of most of the works which have been much cared for, were chosen for, and not by, the artists.--Yours, &c.,

T.C. HORSFALL.

The following letter is Mr. Horsfall's answer to the one published in the _Manchester Courier_, August 30, 1890:--

SWANSCOE PARK, NEAR MACCLESFIELD, _August 20, 1890_.

DEAR SIR FREDERIC LEIGHTON,--It is most kind of you to answer my letter so fully. I shall show my grat.i.tude by doing my best to make your counsel as useful as possible to Manchester.

The system which you suggest for giving some idea of masterpieces which are too distant to be visited seems to me to be admirable, and I cannot but believe that it will be adopted in one of our Manchester Galleries.

With regard to the advisableness of choosing for public galleries chiefly pictures of n.o.ble subjects respecting which most people have, when they see the pictures, or can be expected to gain, some knowledge, though I feel the great weight of your argument, I am still of the same opinion. I may say this without presumption, because the great question which we are discussing: "How can Art be made most useful to England?" involves the two other questions: "What are the best conditions under which artists can work?" and "How can the best work of artists be made to influence the rest of the community?" In considering the second of these questions an artist is, I think, impeded by his special gifts, while I, not an artist, aided by the _qualites de mes defauts_, and by the results of several years of experiment in the use of pictures, believe myself to have gained much trustworthy knowledge! Speaking from the standpoint which I have thus reached, I should say that whilst the artist is most conscious of the a.n.a.logy which exists between painting and instrumental music, there is really a much closer a.n.a.logy between painting and poetry, or between painting and song, and that it is this closer a.n.a.logy which should guide the action of the directors of public galleries. Painting deals, while instrumental music does not, with subjects respecting which we think and feel, and it must accept the results for good and evil of this; its products cannot be, as instrumental music is, without definite relation to our feeling and thought, and a simply neutral relation being impossible, the relation must be enn.o.bling or debasing in some degree. I think that my a.n.a.lysis of the conditions which must be fulfilled if the relations is to be an enn.o.bling one was sound.

In asking that painters shall choose subjects pure and lovely "and of good report," I am not asking that painting shall leave its special function--shall cease to do that which it can do better than any other art; but only that it shall recognise that its function differs from that of instrumental music, and is the creation in us of a symphony of feeling or emotional thought and enjoyment of form and colour, and human skill, and love of beauty.--With very many thanks, I am, dear Sir Frederic Leighton, yours sincerely,

T.C. HORSFALL.

2 HOLLAND PARK ROAD, KENSINGTON, W., _August 22, 1890_.

DEAR MR. HORSFALL,--I have to thank you for your kind and interesting letter of the 20th.

Knowing of old the views you entertain, and the radical divergence which exists between them and my own, I had fully antic.i.p.ated the spirit of your answer; in fact, it almost seemed to me when I wrote at some length the other day that I ought to explain that it was out of deference to your wish and in high appreciation of the long and earnest thought which you have given to a grave subject that I did so, rather than in the hope that my views would carry conviction or commend themselves to you.

The divergence between us is, as I said, at the root of things, and is one on which I do not think experience either qualifies or disqualifies us to judge. The question is not what effect pictures may have had on certain people, but what the _proper_ function of Art is. The question is theoretic rather than practical. _If_ the primary function of Art is definitely didactic, _if_ its first duty is to inculcate a specific moral truth, then, indeed, there is, as you very rightly say, no neutral ground. Either the teaching is wholesome or it is mischievous.

Meanwhile, our brief correspondence only throws into stronger light the impossibility to which I believe I alluded in my first letter, of dealing with such a subject within the compa.s.s of a letter, and in broad and sweeping outlines. So, for instance, when I used instrumental music as a parallel, I did not for a moment mean to describe its province as being identical with that of painting. Neither, on the other hand, would you, I presume, in instancing song on your side wish to be taken too literally; for you would have, according to your theory, to excommunicate, let us say, for instance, Schubert, the king of song-writers, who has played on more varied chords of feeling and imagination than any other musician of his kind, and of whom I am not aware that he ever inculcated (I feel pretty certain that he never meant to inculcate) a definite moral lesson.

But I am beginning again. Let me at once draw rein, and abandoning a barren, however interesting controversy, remain, dear Mr. Horsfall, yours sincerely,

FRED LEIGHTON.

2 HOLLAND PARK ROAD, KENSINGTON, W., _August 28, 1890_.

DEAR MR. HORSFALL,--Before starting for my holiday, of which I stand in much need, I write one line to acknowledge and thank you for your amiable and interesting letter, which shows me, I am very glad to see, that we are much less divided in opinion than I should have gathered from what you had previously written, and indeed printed.

Judgments given as absolute in your letters to the Manchester press are shown by the commentary which your last letter furnishes to be in a manner conditional, and without that commentary your words were rather misleading. I was not unnaturally a little startled--I, who do not think a "subject"

in the ordinary sense of the word imperative at all--to find you condemn the purchase of Yeames's "Arthur and Hubert" (which, for the element of human emotion, certainly satisfies the Aristotelian demand in reference to tragedy), because the emotion does not turn on an heroic act; and I may say, in pa.s.sing, that I am unable to see how a scene in which deep pity for the helpless is aroused, can be justly described as a "horror which it is foolish to try to realise."

Meanwhile, I fully feel the practical difficulty which your last letter describes. It is a difficulty of the most perplexing kind. For it must be evident that whilst with a people of strong moral fibre and an almost entire absence of aesthetic sensibility--at all events, on the side of form--you may indirectly insinuate some perception of the beautiful--of that essence which lifts us out of ourselves--under the cover and pretext of a _moral_ emotion--we cannot ignore the danger of producing the exactly opposite effect of confirming the dully-strung spectator in the belief that the stirring of that moral emotion is in fact the _raison d'etre_ of the work. One is, of course, glad, as the world goes, that the doors of righteousness should be opened, even by the wrong key; but one would still more desire that the door which yields only to that key should not itself remain closed.

Pray do not take the trouble to acknowledge these parting words: but believe me, very truly yours,

FRED LEIGHTON.

With regard to Leighton's acute artistic sense of fitness when it was a matter of chosing a site for buildings or monuments, so that such placing should give them their full value of effect, I remember, after a site had been decided on for Cleopatra's Needle in London, Leighton vehemently denouncing the idea of placing it where it now stands. The conversation we had respecting it was recalled by finding the following letter:--