[-23-]
CHAPTER III
LORD LEIGHTON
(1895)
SHORTLY after the opening of Parliament I
received a letter from Sir Frederick, afterwards Lord Leighton, inviting me to
take tea with him at Arab House in Holland Park road. He had just returned from
the south of France where he had spent several months, resting and vainly hoping
to recuperate his failing health.
The annual dinner of the Royal Academy, at which he had
always presided since his election as President, had been omitted that year, as
there was none willing to serve as chairman in his absence. He was then in
London, which was practically deserted at the end of the season, on his way to
Bath to try the efficacy of the waters. I had a letter of introduction from
Harriet Hosmer, a dear friend whom he had known in his student days in Rome, and
it was to this that I was indebted for the visit, which was a memorable one.
Although his illness was fatal - a fact not realized at that
time by even his closest friends - there was nothing in his appearance or his
manner to indicate that he was not in robust health. He impressed me as a man
lighthearted and full of gaiety, charmingly at ease and with the faculty of
placing his guests at ease. He was carefully dressed, his velvet coat and
scarlet neckerchief being strikingly becoming to his picturesque figure. His
hair and beard were of silvery whiteness, his fine eyes
[-24-] were undimmed, and his regular features were hardly less classical
than those which he had loved to paint.
The time for my visit had been previously arranged, so that I
was shown into the drawing room on the ground-floor, where he speedily joined
me, extending his hand and greeting me cordially as the representative of his
old friend. There was no other visitor present, so I had the great privilege of
monopolizing his brilliant conversation. He first showed me over the house,
painstakingly pointing out everything that he thought might prove of interest,
all of which I recall with a sensation of regret, for even at that time he
suffered continually. As is usual with most English houses, the drawing-room,
dining-room and studio were in the rear, looking out into a deep, shady garden,
in which he took great pride. There was a terrace and a fine lawn, with tall,
branching trees, many of which, he told me, he had planted with his own hands.
"My American visitors," he said, "are always
much surprised to find such a garden as this in the heart of London."
And well they might have been; the bare brick wall in front
gave no hint of the waving boughs and velvet sward which it effectually
concealed.
In the drawing-room he pointed out two admirable examples of
Corot's work, one full of misty foliage and cool, soft shadows, with the
peculiar silvery greys in which the great French artist so excelled. They hung
side by side, and the English master had evidently a strong affection for both
the artist and the two cherished examples of his work. From the drawing-room he
led the way into what resembled a Moorish court; the walls were of blue and
white tiles, every one of which had been selected by the painter-a collection
which, he told me, he was years in completing; there was a dripping fountain
playing in a basin of black marble, and carved Moorish grilles before [-25-]
the windows by which the light could be excluded, with cushioned divans
beneath them; it was like a bit of Aladdin's palace, which some obliging genius
might have set down in London and have forgotten.
"When this was made," Lord Leighton explained,
"I sent the builder to Spain to study Moorish designs and I impressed upon
his mind that it was not intended for any especial purpose, but simply to be
beautiful."
And its purpose, from the inlaid floor to the fret-work of
the arched ceiling and the gilded decorations of the door-way, had been
faithfully carried out.
On the main staircase above the landing was an unfinished
portrait of Edmund Burke by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
"There," said Lord Leighton, "that is most
interesting, because it shows how Sir Joshua worked out his ideas. You see, the
canvas is quite bare in places."
And this was true of the face, of which the outlines only had
been drawn, but these were so bold and strong that the effect was strikingly
life-like.
On the second floor - the first floor in English parlance -
he conducted me to a small gallery, well lighted, in which hung a fine
collection of pictures, every one a master-piece.
"These," he explained, "were painted for this
little gallery and given me by my friends - this was from Millais, that from
Alma Tadema - this from Burne Jones - the latter a stately, strutting pea-cock -
all admirable examples of the work of each donor."
From the gallery we crossed the broad corridor to the
studio-one with roof and walls of glass, its French window's opening upon a
veranda. "There is my winter studio," Lord Leighton explained,
"so that I may secure all the light possible from our dull skies."
In this delightful winter studio was a bewildering array [-26-]
of treasures, bronzes, marbles, rich fabrics and hangings, furniture of
carved oak black as ebony, and plaques from India, China and Japan.
In the summer studio, which, unlike the other, looked down
into the tree-tops, an unfinished picture stood upon the easel, the paint still
wet, upon which Lord Leighton had been at work that morning. It was this
unfinished picture which, a few months later, was placed at the head of his
coffin in the drawing-room of Arab House.
"I did this to-day," he said presently, showing me
the beautiful face of a young girl done in sepia upon the fly leaf of a
magnificently bound book.
"It is a gift from the Princess of Wales to a friend,
and she asked me to do it for her."
He spoke very affectionately and admiringly of the Princess,
who was a warm personal friend, and with a great deal of pride pointed out a
chair whose carved frame and leather cushion had been the work of her own hands.
"And now shall I give you some tea?" he asked,
pouring it, with much grace, at a little table which had been daintily spread.
The tea being dispensed, we sat down for a chat, which was not the least
delightful part of the visit. The conversation then turned upon America and
Americans, the munificence of its rich people who collected works of art and
presented them to public galleries. He recalled with admiration the fact that
the architect of the Chicago Public Library had been sent to Europe, with what
he called "extraordinary liberality," to study the best models; he
could recall but one parallel - the re-modelling and re-building of Paris under
Napoleon III, which, however, had been the work of an Emperor with the wealth of
an Empire at his disposal. He thought that the liberality displayed by Chicago
was much more common in the United States than in England.
I had visited the galleries, museums and libraries in and
[-27-] about London and could hardly agree with him, and said that, from
my superficial observation, it seemed to me that England was gathering to itself
things of value, both in art and in the field of scientific study and research,
from all the countries of the earth. He still insisted that this was true of the
United States in a far greater degree than of England. People in his own country
had felt the stress of hard times, and many wealthy and even noble families,
unable to collect their rents, had been forced to sell pictures, manuscripts and
their valuables, many of which had gone to America and were a great loss to his
own country.
He seemed reluctant to speak of his failing health, but said:
"For the first time in sixteen years I was unable to
preside at the annual dinner of the Royal Academy. I have been forced to decline
all invitations and could see but few visitors, and these only in the most
informal way."
He gave me two interesting reminiscences: one his first
recollection of Harriet Hosmer and the other concerning Lady Butler's "Roll
Call."
"Miss Hosmer," he said, "I first met in Rome.
She was studying with Gibson, who took the greatest interest in his pupil. She
was then a young girl, full of spirit and intelligence. It was at that time an
unusual thing for a young woman to devote herself to the serious study of
sculpture, but she had talent, immense energy and the faculty of making
friends."
Of Lady Butler's "Roll Call" he explained that all
work sent to the hanging committee must be submitted anonymously.
"Frequently," he said, "the artists are the
sons and daughters or relatives of the committee, and such a course must be
pursued that decisions may be made absolutely without bias. When the 'Roll Call'
was presented there [-28-] was the greatest
excitement, and it was greeted with a burst of applause. The technique was
entirely unfamiliar, nor was there in the picture anything that gave the
slightest clue to the painter's identity. Up to that time Lady Butler, who was
then Miss Thompson, had lived in comparative retirement and was not well known
outside her own circle of friends and acquaintances. The picture made a
wonderful furore at the exhibition that year; a railing had to be placed in
front of it, and two policemen were required in constant attendance to prevent
the crowds from halting too long as they passed in line before it."
The conversation then turned upon the work of modern French
painters, whose technique he praised warmly, qualifying his opinion, however,
with the statement that within the last five years there had been a marked
retrogression in France. He spoke in terms of highest commendation of the more
recent work of Mrs. Alma Tadema and her daughter and other women painters, but
gave the foremost place to Henrietta Raeburn, whom he considered one of the
greatest of English figure painters and whose "Apollo and Daphne," in
both coloring and drawing, he pronounced one of the best pictures in the Academy
that year. He praised the zeal and industry of women painters in general, but
thought their limitation lay in their lack of marked creative power, although he
admitted that there had been some notable exceptions to the rule. He questioned
the genius of one or two who had been renowned throughout the world, and thought
that their fame was the result of their conspicuousness, in that they had
essayed a line of study to which women rarely devoted themselves. He would not
admit that men owed anything to the heredity of unhampered opportunity, of
freedom from the trammels of convention and prejudice in the past, or to the
monopoly of technical training from which [-29-] women
until recently had been absolutely cut off. He politely concurred in the belief,
which I could not refrain from stating, that a just estimate of their genius
would hardly be possible for at least half a century; that they had hardly grown
accustomed to their freedom, and were only beginning to settle down to
systematic and serious work, as men were accustomed to work. He reminded me,
however, that they had had a fair field in music and that there had been no
great women composers, and laughed good-humoredly when I reminded him that where
the endowments of a son or daughter were equal, as in the case of Mozart and his
sister, of Mendelssohn and his sister, all the advantages were given the son,
who did not scruple to claim whatever was of value in his sister's compositions.
He acknowledged, finally, that women had not had equal
opportunity with men to study from the nude in London, a privilege that they did
enjoy freely in Paris, which he pronounced emphatically the foundation of all
excellence in drawing.
When the subject was finally dropped, he suggested many
things that I should see, the Turner collection in the National Gallery, a
number of private collections, and Henrietta Raeburn's pictures, which were then
on exhibition in Regent street. He wanted to know how much I had seen of
England, and questioned me closely, urging me to visit Cornwall, for which he
had a strong affection, and above all to visit Land's End. He showed me a number
of studies which he had made of that wild, picturesque coast, and which were
afterwards shown at one of the autumn exhibitions.
He then returned to the discussion of American affairs, and
the strong natural tie that existed between Americans and the English. He
expressed a fear that, in the continual intermixture of Americans with other
races in the United [-30-] States, the old
Anglo-Saxon traits would be corrupted or lost; he also commented with admiration
on our written constitution whose inflexibility he did not inveigh against, as
Englishmen frequently do, but said that it was a remarkable summary of
principles and that it had been a safe guide for the nation ever since its
adoption. In their own lack of just such a document he thought that the time
might come when its need would be seriously felt, and gave the crisis through
which the country had just passed, and which he considered decidedly serious, as
a proof of this possibility.
"Fortunately," he said, "there had been no
resistance to authority; but the situation was sufficiently grave, and a little
mischievous agitation might easily have brought about a dangerous contest."
Finally, when I rose to go, I expressed my gratification that
the rumors of his illness had been exaggerated.
"I am very ill," he said, his face clouding for an
instant, "I know my own critical condition perfectly; I have to exercise
constant care and avoid all unnecessary exertion. I cannot raise my hand to my
head; I shall never recover."
There was perfect calmness and a certain patient resignation
in the manner in which he made this statement, an acceptance of fate that was
most impressive. He asked me repeatedly in what way he could be of service to
me, and as there was no favor which I felt justified in asking at that time, he
said that he would keep me in mind when he returned in November. From many men
this would have been, probably, a mere politeness, but I had learned that from
people of his nationality such promises were fulfilled to the letter. The
following morning there came a charming note, "written," he explained,
"on the edge of my portmanteau," on the eve of his departure for Bath.
He enclosed a letter to Alma Tadema, [-31-] whom
he said I would find a charming man, and spoke again with admiration of his wife
and daughter.
Lord Leighton returned to London a few months later, having
received very little benefit from the waters at Bath. Among the award of New
Year's honors he was raised to the peerage, but lived only a few weeks after
receiving this distinction. He was born at Scarborough December 3, 1830, and at
the time of his death was still in the prime of life. He was a man of wonderful
attainments and varied genius, a sculptor as well as a painter; he spoke almost
every modern European language and was known in every European capital. His
social qualities were of the highest order, and his tact and courtesy - the
expression of a thoroughly kindly nature - were unfailing. His own brilliant
success made him only the more sympathetic and helpful to those less
distinguished than him self; he was a man with a multitude of friends and he had
filled the high office of President of the Royal Academy, for which he had every
qualification, with signal ability. His love for the Academy knew no bounds; he
felt an intense pride in it and spared no effort to promote its influence, to
increase its usefulness, and to make its approval an incentive, not only to
English artists, but to foreign artists of every nationality, who had been most
generously admitted to its privileges.
The malady, angina pectoris, from which Lord Leighton had
suffered so long, finally became most acute. During the last week of his life he
endured the keenest anguish with heroic patience, opiates failing to relieve his
sufferings; he welcomed the end as a release and passed quietly away on the
morning of January 25, 1896. The funeral was held on Monday, February 8,
and in its solemnity and magnificence was a fitting tribute to his exalted
position. The body, after the preparation for burial, reposed in the
drawing-room of his house, and was then pri-[-32-]vately
removed to the central hall of the Academy. There it lay in state under the dome
until the hour for the funeral, which was held in St. Paul's. During the week
thousands called at Arab House, registering their names, in the visitors' book,
and they were the names of men and women eminent in art and letters and
politics, many of whom had been his warm personal friends.
At the Academy, the coffin, which was of polished oak covered
with a pall of crimson velvet, rested upon a bier draped in deep purple; upon
the lid of the coffin was placed a palm branch with the artist's palette set
with the colors, just as he had used it a fortnight before, with the brushes and
maulstick. At the foot of the bier, upon a cushion of crimson velvet, were
arranged the medals and orders. that had been conferred upon him by foreign
governments, while a bronze portrait bust stood upon its pedestal at the head of
the catafalque, around the neck the gold chain and medal given the President of
the Academy by George III, and worn by his successors. Flowers were heaped about
the bier, almost concealing it-sheaves of lilies and roses, masses of violets,
with ferns and palm branches. There were countless wreaths - from the Queen and
Royal Family, from Academicians, painters and sculptors, from nobles and
commons, and from his friends, great and humble, in many walks of life. The
Queen sent a wreath of laurel and immortelles tied with satin ribbons, that bore
a card upon which she had written:
"A mark of regard from Victoria R. I."
That of the Empress Frederick also bore an autograph
inscription: "From Victoria, Empress Frederick," and one which had
been sent by the Prince and Princess of Wales was of ferns with lilies of the
valley and other fragrant white flowers; upon the card attached to this memento
she had written these lines:
[-33-]
"Life's race well run
Life's work well done
Life's crown well won
Now comes rest."
A wreath of laurel tied with gold ribbons was from the Royal
Academy as a body, and similar offerings were sent from other institutions
throughout Great Britain.
On Monday morning as the body was conveyed to St. Paul's the
side-walks along the route of the procession were crowded with spectators, many
of the shops having their shutters partially closed, while the blinds of private
residences were drawn and signs of mourning were exhibited.
As the bell of St. Paul's tolls only upon the death of a
member of the Royal Family, it was silent, but as the cortege passed along the
Strand, knells were rung from the bells of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and St.
Clement Dane's.
Sir W. Wilkin, the Lord Mayor, arrived a little after twelve
o'clock, accompanied by the aldermen and the London County Council. As the
coffin was removed from the hearse and borne into the cathedral, the guard,
drawn up in line, presented arms. The Dean and the Archdeacon advanced from the
chancel to meet the procession as the west doors were thrown open, the Lord
Mayor and his suite being assigned seats in the choir. It had been arranged that
the burial should take place in the crypt, and a stone had been removed from the
pavement that the coffin might be lowered to its resting place below. As it was
placed in position the choir chanted "I am the Resurrection and the Life
;" "Lord, Thou Hast Been our Refuge," was also chanted, and the
proper lesson was read by the Dean. This was followed by Brahm's anthem,
"Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall have comfort," the Bishop
of Stepney read the passage: "Man that is born of woman hath but a short
time to live, and is full of misery;" after which earth from the Mount of
Olives near the Garden of Gethsemane was cast into the grave.
The two sisters of Lord Leighton, with his friend Mr. Val
Prinsep, then approached the grave to look upon the place to which the body was
to be committed for its final repose. As they turned away a brilliant burst of
sunshine streamed through the windows, the morning having been dull and cloudy,
and the choir broke forth with thrilling effect:
"I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me 'Write;'
From henceforth blessed are the dead who die in the Lord."
At the conclusion of the service, as the notes of the Dead
March in Saul pealed through the cathedral, Sir John Millais, shortly afterward
chosen Lord Leighton's successor as President of the Academy and within the year
to repose beside him, placed upon the coffin the wreath of the Royal Academy,
while Count Hatzfeld, representing the Emperor of Germany, stepped forward and
laid the Imperial offering beside it. The coffin was then lowered into the
crypt, the grave itself being heaped and covered with wreaths.
Near at hand were the ashes of Sir Joshua Reynolds, of
Turner, Opie, Benjamin West, Landseer and others who had preceded him.
A great artist, a courtier, man of letters, eminent in all,
Lord Leighton was deeply and sincerely mourned. He possessed in a rare degree
the faculty of making friends, and no one envied him the many and great honors
which had been bestowed upon him throughout his brilliant career.