I am delighted, dear Guss, that you have a music master to your heart, and that you have been considered worthy to play Bach's Fugues, which are indeed monstrous difficult. With regard to the pianistic style and the dewdrop-warbling school, you need not fear that I should throw sour grapes in your teeth about that; franchement, the —— after all is commonplace enough, and the ——, though pretty, hardly deserves such an epithet as beautiful; as for the ——, it's just ludicrous. Did you ever hear —— piano-doodle himself?
I was rather surprised at the judgment you pass on Fanny Kemble's reading; if anything seems at all coarse in it, it is occasional bits in the male part, and that only, after all, because it is too good and it seems discrepant to hear male harsh sounds proceeding from the mouth of a woman. With regard to her women, nothing can be more pathetic and touching than her Juliet, or indeed all the women I have heard her do; there is altogether in her style a certain amount of mannerism belonging to the Kemble school, but in spite of all that, it is quite unapproachable now and is grand in the extreme; the Ghost in "Hamlet" is quite a creation. You seem, like Mamma, to apologise almost for expressing an admiration for my photograph; do you think, dear, that I don't value your sympathy irrespectively of your art judgment? I shall send you soon two photographs of portraits that I am now painting; one of Mrs. Sartoris, the other of her little daughter May. I must close.—With very best love to all, I remain, your very affectionate brother,
Fred Leighton.
The change Leighton made in his picture at the request of Cornelius, mentioned in his letter to his father, dated March 2, 1855, can be seen by comparing the pencil sketch of the complete design with the finished painting (see [List of Illustrations]). It consisted in his making the Procession turn at the left-hand corner to face spectator, instead of filling in this space and giving the required grouping of lines partly by the foreshortened horse and its rider which we find in the first sketch. In the Leighton House Collection there is a fine study in pencil of the undraped figure of the man riding which is not included in the final design. There are those who remembered the picture when first painted in Rome, also at the Exhibitions in Trafalgar Square and Burlington House, who were of opinion that it was never seen so advantageously as on the occasion when the King lent it for exhibition in the artist's own studio in Leighton House in the year 1900, and many seeing it there exclaimed, "Leighton never did a finer thing;" and, truly, seen, as it was then, placed across the end of the glass studio under perfect conditions of lighting and surroundings, the power and originality both in the colouring and design of the work were very striking and impressive. Leighton's friends felt specially grateful to the King, for an opportunity having been afforded for the public to see this early work under such favourable and appropriate circumstances. During those months when the picture was shown at Leighton House, it felt as if the very spirit of the young artist, at the time when he was starting on his notable career, had returned and was haunting the home of his later years. From the end of the large studio, looking through the darkened passage connecting the two rooms, the procession verily looked alive, a tableau vivant—no mere painting.
One of the salient virtues in the composition lies in the happy way in which the two central figures take a separate important position, without the moving on of the procession being interrupted nor their attitudes being in any sense forced. On the contrary, it is by their absorbed, modest demeanour, which contrasts with the rest of the gay crowd, talking, singing, and playing musical instruments as it moves along, that the sense of awe and reverence felt by the two artist spirits becomes accentuated. These recognise in this public ovation bestowed on the picture of their beloved "Madonna and Child" the union of a service offered both to Art and to Religion.
The happiness Leighton enjoyed during the two years when this subject occupied his thoughts seems to have been reflected in the vigour of the actual painting. It was evidently finally executed with an exuberant feeling of satisfaction. Careful studies having been previously made for every portion, the under-painting itself was, as he writes to Steinle, completed in one week, and the canvas once attacked, there appears to have been no hitch in the process of completion. The happy balancing of masses, the grouping of the figures, the beauty of the lines throughout the crowded procession are admirable. The picture was admitted by competent judges to be a work marked by a distinct individuality, yet possessing "style," a word which in recent years had been associated in England with art that lacked vigour and originality, and which flavoured solely of obsolete grooves and theories. The colour is richer and purer than in Leighton's earliest pictures, and arranged cleverly so as to give full importance and value to the beautiful white costume worn by Cimabue.[34] Sir William Richmond, R.A., writes: "Impressions of early years are not easily removed. As a boy at school I went to the R.A. Exhibition, and saw for the first time a work of Leighton's, the procession in honour of the picture by Cimabue in Florence, 1855. It stood out among the other pictures to my young eye as a work so complete, so noble in design, so serious in sentiment and of such achievement, that perforce it took me by the throat."
Leighton sent a photograph of the picture to Steinle with a letter dated March 1.
Translation.]
Rome, Via Felice 123,
March 1, 1855.
My very dear Friend,—Although since my last letter I have had no news of you, I cannot pass by this moment, so important to me, without giving you intelligence of it. Yesterday I at last sent off both my pictures, the large one to London, the small one to Paris, with the consignment of the Roman Committee. Thank goodness, at last I have got them off my mind! And how sorry I am, dear Friend, that I could not put the finishing touches to them in your presence! Of the "Cimabue," I send you, in two pieces, a very bad photograph, but it is the best that could be made within four walls; from it you will only be able to judge generally of the grouping, for as regards the colour, which comes out so black in the photograph, in the picture it is altogether clear and light. You will certainly be glad to hear that this work has earned much praise here; I promised that you should not have to be ashamed of your pupil. The small picture is so dark in effect, that it would be impossible to photograph it; but as I suppose you, like all the rest of the world, will visit the great exhibition in Paris, you can avail yourself of the same opportunity to see my daub.