PLATE III.—GATHERING CITRONS
(In the possession of Mr. Mildmay, M.P.)
Few of Leighton's paintings of Eastern subjects illustrate better than this one the certainty and precision of his draughtsmanship and his power of dealing with architectural details. But this "Old Damascus—Jews' Quarter"—as it was called when it was first exhibited in 1874—is much more than a simple study of architecture; it sums up many of the artist's best qualities as a craftsman and a shrewd observer of Nature.
PLATE III.—GATHERING CITRONS
But in an analysis of Leighton's art this famous composition claims a place of even greater importance than in the historical summary of his life's work. That it has faults in draughtsmanship, and that in certain details its composition is open to criticism, can be frankly admitted; these defects, however, are but what might have been expected in so ambitious an effort by an artist whose years did not number more than four-and-twenty, and who necessarily lacked that comprehensive grasp of executive processes which comes only with long experience and exhaustive practice in the mechanism of painting. When the circumstances of its production are taken into account it must always rank as one of the most triumphant demonstrations of youthful genius which have ever been recorded. That its reception at the 1855 Academy was really enthusiastic can well be understood; it must have come as a welcome surprise to the people who were growing impatient of the atmosphere of mediocrity by which at that period nearly the whole of British art was pervaded.
Now, the significance of such an example of Leighton's early achievement is made more emphatic by comparison with the long series of his later works. At twenty-four the Italian influence was strong upon him, and the impressions of his boyhood, modified but not effaced by the teaching of Steinle, had still power to control his artistic intelligence. The triviality of Italian art, its love of detail, and its seeking after superficialities of expression, did not appeal to him, but in its sumptuousness and sensuous charm he found something with which he could fully sympathise. In yielding to this sympathy, however, he was kept by his fastidious taste and innate love of refinement from running to extremes. He worked in the Italian spirit, but the spirit was that of the older masters rather than that of the modern men, and even then it underwent a kind of transmutation in his mind. For the greater qualities of the picture were not simply the outcome of his imitation of the mannerisms of the school to which at that time he belonged by association, rather were they due to his personal conception of the functions which the imaginative painter was called upon to fulfil—to an independent belief which was capable of being asserted in many ways. This belief, formed in his early manhood, persisted, indeed, in all its essentials to the end of his days, and was as surely evidenced in his later classicism as in the first few examples of his Italian adaptations.
It was founded upon the idea that a work of art to be really great must be rightly decorative, that whatever the pictorial motive chosen, it must be treated as the basis of a studied arrangement of form and colour, and must be brought as near to perfection of design as is possible by the exercise of all the devices of craftsmanship. Leighton undoubtedly saw in decoration the only permissible application of painting, but he saw also that decoration could be made much more than a narrow and unreal convention, and that so far from hampering the artist with high ideals, it offered him the greatest opportunities of satisfying his aspirations. He appreciated, too, the fact that the most exquisite naturalism could be attained in every part of a picture which was designed purely to express an ideal fancy. Therefore, he did not hesitate to select, for many of his most exactly reasoned compositions, subjects which had either an historical allusion, or which illustrated some myth or legend. He was so sure of the principle of his art that he did not fear that in telling the story, and in embroidering it with a wealth of minutely perfected detail, he would lose the vitality or the purity of his decoration.
To this confidence was due emphatically both the power and the charm of the Cimabue picture. The subject, in itself merely episodical, was one capable of just that refinement of design, and balance of colour, which the decorator who is adequately conscious of his responsibility regards as indispensable; and Leighton, spurred to emulation by the noble examples of decorative painting with which he had been familiar from his childhood, and endowed with a just appreciation of his own great gifts, had no hesitation in attempting to turn this incident from art history into a painting which would be an avowal of all the articles of his æsthetic creed, and a profession of the faith to which he had sworn allegiance. It is characteristic of his courage that he should have chosen to make in this manner his first appearance in an English exhibition; a man of less independence would probably have hesitated to stake so much upon a piece of work which, by the very frankness of its revelation of the artist's intention to go his own way, was quite as likely to excite opposition as to be received with approval. But it was no part of his scheme of existence to tout for popularity by coming down to a lower level, and he valued consistency more than the adulation of the public.