Trieste, July 13, 1876.
My dear Leighton,—One word to say that the tiles are packed, and will be sent by the first London steamer—opportunities are rare here. Some are perfect, many are broken; but they will make a bit of mosaic after a little trimming, and illustrate the difference between Syriac and Sindi. They are taken from the tomb (Moslem) of Sakhar, on the Indus. I can give you analysis of glaze if you want it; but I fancy you don't care for analyses. The yellow colour is by far the rarest and least durable apparently. The blues are the favourites and the best.
Here we are living in a typhoon of lies. I am losing patience, and shall probably bolt to Belgrade in search of truth. Austria is behaving in her usual currish manner, allowing her policy to be managed by a minority of light-headed, Paddy-whack Magyars and pudding-headed, beer-brained Austro-Germans. How all Europe funks the Slavs, and how well the latter are beginning to know it.
Very grand of la grande Bretagne to propose occupying Egypt without any army to speak of. Sorry that you don't understand the force of the expression, the "world generally," but will try some time or other to make it clear. United best regards and wishes. Why don't you take a holiday to Turkey?—Ever yours,
R.F. Burton.
P.S.—I hear that W. Wright has subsided into an Irish conventicle, and that Green doesn't like prospect of returning to Dan!
The construction of this thing of beauty, the Arab Hall, is a visible and permanent proof of the side in Leighton's artistic endowments which are so rarely found in northern, or indeed any modern nations, and the want of which are gradually leading our world into being very ugly—namely, the sense of the appropriate, of balance, of proportion, and of harmony in the construction and decoration of buildings. As an adherent of the pre-Raphaelites, William Morris had been battling with this tasteless condition of things for some years—strenuously working to counteract the unmeaning adaptations of foreign designs of all times and of all countries into English work, and the general muddledom into which the decoration in the surroundings of domestic life had fallen, by starting afresh on the lines of simple good designs of English pre-Puritan days. Leighton's taste had been inspired, in the first instance, by the crafts as well as by the art of Italy. Subsequently, the East had fascinated him. He admired greatly the frank, courageous beauty in the colouring of the decorations of her buildings; but, having an acute sense of the appropriate, he felt that they would not harmonise successfully with the necessary surroundings of English domestic life. He was therefore inspired to erect a special shrine for his collection of enamels. It has been truly said that the Arab Hall is as notable a creation in Art as any of Leighton's pictures or statues. The beauty of its effect is greatly enhanced by the arrangement of light and shade which leads on to the wonderfully beautiful casket of treasures. Monsieur Choisy, the distinguished French architect, wrote as follows in the Times of April 27, 1896, when advocating the preservation of this house for the public: "Nowhere have I found in an architectural monument a happier gradation of effects, nor a more complete knowledge of the play of light. The entrance to the house is by a plain hall that leads to a 'patio' lit from the sky, where enamels shine brilliantly in the full light; from this 'patio' one passes into a twilight corridor, where enamel and gold detach themselves from an architectural ground of richness somewhat severe; it is a transition which prepares the eye for a jewel of Oriental Art, where the most brilliant productions of the Persian potter are set in architectural frame inspired by Arab Art, but treated freely; the harmony is so perfect that one asks oneself if the architecture has been conceived for the enamels, or the enamels for the hall. This gradation, perhaps unique in contemporary architecture, was Leighton's idea; and the illustrious painter found in his old friend Mr. G. Aitchison, who built his house, a worthy interpreter of his fine conception. This hall, where colour is triumphant, was dear to Leighton, and even forms the background to some of his pictures. Towards the end of his life he still meant to embellish it by substituting marble for that small part that was only painted. The generous employment of his fortune alone prevented him from realising his intention.
"England has at all times given the example of honouring great men; she will, I am sure, find the means of preserving for Art a monument of which she has such reason to be proud."[57]
