To flatter was an impossibility with Leighton. He paid every artist the respect of believing he desired the same sincerity shown in the criticism of his work that he,—Leighton,—wished when his own was judged, and with which he judged it himself. A remarkable feature in his character was the power he had of retaining so secure a hold on his own standards of excellence without for a moment losing his individual self-centre, yet at the same time possessing that of entering sympathetically into the view of other artists—a view often quite contrary to his own—and generously acknowledging every merit that could by any possibility be extracted from their work. Mr. Briton Rivière writes: "The intensity of his own personal belief was well known to himself. He once said to me, in reference to a clever picture which he greatly admired for some of its qualities, that he could not really enjoy it, owing to its careless drawing. On another occasion, when at Mr. Russell's sale I had bought a very vigorous study by Etty, and Leighton was quite enthusiastic about its colour and painting, he said, 'But I could not bear it on my wall, with that drawing,' and he laughed at himself for this strictness, and said, 'I know that I am a prig about drawing.' However, not only did this never blind him to the claims of another kind of art, but I think he was even more keen to recommend for approval the work of any school of painting for which, personally, he had no particular liking or sympathy. 'It is not whether you or I like it, but what it is on its own merits,' was a favourite warning of his to any rapid opinion expressed on a picture. To any one intimately acquainted with his own real views and opinions it was sometimes surprising to find how well he realised the intentions, and put himself in the place, of some artist who had produced something very foreign to his own point of view, and quite repugnant to his beliefs. This is not a common quality among artists, whose critical tolerance is often in an inverse ratio to the firmness of their own particular creed of art faith; and it was one of the many qualities which marked Leighton out as so admirably fitted for the Presidency."
Leighton was, undoubtedly, an absolutely competent critic of his own art; and the fact that his principles had been inspired by a spontaneous and sincere reverence and admiration for the creations of artists whom time has crowned as the greatest in the world, and that with his critical faculty he perceived in what measure he had succeeded in following in their steps, enabled him to gauge with absolute justice the merits and shortcomings of his own work, compared with that of his contemporaries. Whatever those shortcomings were, certain it is that they did not arise from an absence of those natural gifts which are the outcome of emotional sensitiveness, nor from a want of intense feeling for the beauty of Nature, nor from a poverty of invention. The theory that his art was solely the result of his having an abnormal power of industry and of taking pains—a theory which has been advanced many times since Leighton's death—cannot hold good for a moment with those who impartially study his work from the beginning of his career. The spontaneity of the impulse to produce in every born artist is described in the following passage from Leighton's first discourse, when President, to the students of the Royal Academy, December 10, 1879, and the description is obviously drawn from his own personal experience: "The gift of artistic production manifests itself in the young in an impulse so spontaneous and so imperative, and is in its origin so wholly emotional and independent of the action of the intellect, that it at first and for some time entirely absorbs their energies. The student's first steps on the bright paths of his working life are obscured by no shadows save those cast by the difficulties of a technical nature which lie before him, and these difficulties, which indeed he only half discerns, serve rather to whet his appetite than to hamper or discourage him; for his heart whispers that, when he shall have brushed them aside, the road will be clear before him, and the utterance of what he feels stirring within him will be from thenceforward one long unchecked delight. This spirit of spontaneous, unquestioning rejoicing in production, which is still the privilege of youth, and which, even now, the very strong sometimes carry with them through their lives, was indeed, when Art herself was in her prime, the normal and constant condition of the artistic temper, and shone out in all artistic work. It is this spirit which gave a perennial freshness to Athenian Art—the serenest and most spontaneous men have ever seen. And when again, after many centuries, another Art was born out of the night of the Dark Ages, and shed its gentle light over the chaos of society, this spirit once more burst through it into flame. All forms of Art are alike fired with it. Architecture first, exulting in new flights of vigorous and bold creation; then Sculpture; last, Painting, virtually a new Art, looked out on to the world with the wondering delight of a child, timidly at first, but soon to fill it with the bright expression of its joy. Those were halcyon days; the questions, 'Why do I paint?' 'Why do I model?' 'Why should I build beautifully?' 'What—how—shall I build, model, paint?' had no existence in the mind of the artist. 'Why,' he might have answered, 'does the lark soar and sing?'"
STUDY OF SEA THISTLE. Malinmore, Ireland, 1895
From Sketch-book[ToList]
STUDY OF SEA THISTLE. Malinmore, Ireland, 1895
From Sketch-book[ToList]
Though his direct study from Nature mostly took the form, in later years, of sketching in oil colour views in the different countries in which he travelled, Leighton showed to the end of his life his great delight in flowers by continuing to make sketches from them. In 1895, at Malinmore, he was fascinated by the sea-thistle, and there are four pages in a sketch-book devoted to rapid sketches of the plant, callantra, which he made there. Notes are written on the first sketch indicating the colours. It is interesting to compare the early pencil work executed between 1850 and 1860 with that of forty years later. Though the handling may be different, there is the same complete sense and enjoyment of the wonderful architecture of plants and flowers obvious in both.[47]