To turn to the collection of Leighton's own paintings, the most complete work secured is the "Clytemnestra from the battlements of Argos watches for the beacon fires that are to announce the return of Agamemnon" (No. 212).
Mr. G.F. Watts, R.A., writes: "I am more pleased than I can say that the picture is possible. It is very fine, a grand pictorial realisation of Greek sculpture and Greek poetry, very noble in form and expression, and singularly fine in the arrangement of drapery. Certainly a better example of Leighton at his happiest could not, I think, be found. It is also especially Leighton."
Mr. Watts has himself presented a finished painting by Leighton—a half-length figure of a man, which is an exquisite piece of work and given to Mr. Watts many years ago by the artist. When presenting it to the House Mr. Watts wrote that it was one of his possessions which he prized the most. Though the collection in Lord Leighton's House is mainly formed of his drawings, the few finished paintings and the several oil sketches of landscape belonging to it are sufficient to show how exquisite was his native sense of colour. The colour in "Clytemnestra" (No. 212) is both true to nature as a presentiment of the moonlight effect and to the dramatic feeling of the subject. The study (No. 110), for one of the heads in "Summer Moon" (No. 272), presented by Mr. Alfred Waterhouse, R.A., and executed actually by the light of the moon in Rome, is notably fine in texture and gives us the origin of that curiously happy note of colour in "Clytemnestra"—the bar of dull red cooled by moonlight. The model wore a scarlet ribbon, or might be, a row of coral beads round her neck while sitting to Leighton for the study, and this evidently gave him what he wanted, and suggested, when he was painting the "Clytemnestra" two years later, the contrast to the greys and blues in the red bar in this picture. Mr. A.G. Temple in his valuable work, "The Art of Painting in the Queen's Reign," alludes to this effect: "A picture low in key, but curiously strengthened by the massive bar of dark red that runs from the bottom to the top of the picture." Very fine colour and texture is seen in the sketch for a design of "St. George and the Dragon" made for some arched space (No. 115), and also in the small oil sketch for "Golden Hours" (No. 5-A), the study for the background of the picture "David" (No. 111), "A pool, Findhorn River" (No. 120), "Rocks in the Findhorn" (No. 123a), "Kynance Cove" (No. 125), "A View in Spain" (No. 122), "Simætha, the Sorceress" (No. 124), "Bay of Naples by Moonlight" (No. 112), are rapid though eminently careful sketches which prove, perhaps even more convincingly than highly-finished works, that in the very grain of his native art instinct was Leighton's delight in beauty of colour. In the sketch (No. 109), "The Entrance of a House," is one of many examples among his paintings which show what a master he was in the art of painting white; really true white, such as we see in marble and whitewashed walls in Greece, Sicily, and Italy. Surely no artist has ever painted more truly or poetically the quality of Southern light as it falls on white walls and columns. "Lieder ohne Worte" is one of several examples of a successful treatment of white marble as a background painted as Leighton could paint it.
It is indeed to be hoped that Leighton's friends who possess any of those oil paintings of landscape, sea, and architecture which lined the walls of the great studio during his life may help in aiding to make his gifts as a colourist more adequately represented in this permanent collection. The above-named works are, one and all, good specimens for the purpose. Whatever key of colour was struck, each of these studies from nature is a faithful and beautiful record of a scene in some lovely part of the world; whether the scene was fair and bathed in southern sunlight, or glowing in rich depths of shadow as in the paintings of the golden-lined interior of St. Mark's, Venice, further enriched by the scintillating texture of mosaic surface.
Leighton's early education, however, especially when he was in Germany, tended more to the development of his gifts as a draughtsman than to his gifts as a colourist; still it is evident that as soon as he began working independently of any master, his love of colour at once asserted itself. At the age of twenty-five his first picture, "The Cimabue Procession" (No. 42), was exhibited at the Royal Academy and purchased by the Queen. Mr. Ruskin criticised it at the time as the work of a colourist. "This is a very important and very beautiful picture," he writes. "It has both sincerity and grace, and is painted on the purest principles of Venetian art.... The great secret of the Venetians was their simplicity. They were great colourists." (See Catalogue for full quotation.) A lengthy description of Leighton's complete pictures would not find an appropriate place in this preface. Those who had the good fortune to see the wonderful collection of his works in 1897 will hardly need to be reminded of the rich and glowing feast of colour enjoyed before such pictures as "Helios and Rhodos," painted 1869 (studies in Collections No. 218), nor the depth and beauty in "Weaving the Wreath"(No. 144), "Antique Juggling Girl" (No. 359), "Moorish Garden: a Dream of Granada" (No. 280), not to mention the splendour and harmony in many of the larger and more intricate compositions. No less beautiful, it will be remembered, was the colouring of pictures in which the scheme was light and fair rather than rich and glowing. In "Winding the Skein" (No. 198), for instance, there is a feeling of morning freshness in its lovely sea and mountain background and white-marble terrace foreground. Though cool and pale the picture is full of colour. Again, in the slightly-turning figure of Psyche, now in the Tate Gallery (No. 59), the exquisite, pearly fairness of flesh tint must ever make this picture a standard of colour as well as of modelling. In its own line it is an achievement in painting that has surely never been surpassed. Almost equally beautiful is the passage in "Venus Disrobing for the Bath" (No. 151), where the line of the figure comes against the sea background. Leighton's native genius might perhaps be most truly described as one allied closely to, and echoing, that of the Greeks in Art, though trained, during a few important years of study, in Germany. The work of his great contemporaries, Rossetti, Millais, and Burne-Jones, might be described as revealing Italian, English, and Celtic sentiment, influenced by the fervour of pre-Raphaelite feeling. Leighton's genius as a colourist will probably be ever more and more appreciated as a partial allegiance to those three great colourists subsides as a fashion merely.
It is quite clear, from the evidence of the earliest studies, that the extraordinary facility evinced in Lord Leighton's drawings was the outcome of natural gifts. No one can study his art without realising very conclusively that he spared neither time nor trouble in order to make it as perfect as it was in his power to make it; but equally evident is it to those who examine his work with artistic and intelligent insight that the great power that he possessed for taking pains was inspired by a joyous, sensitive delight in beauty. The untiring industry which alone could have produced the unparalleled amount of work which he has left was clearly never weighted by any feeling that the toil of study was irksome. On the contrary there is, in every stroke, evidence that a fine delicate sense of beauty, a fervent, spontaneous "sincerity of emotion" (to use Leighton's own expression) was ever present, instigating and propelling the conscientious persistency of his efforts. Whether it be a flower, a face, a figure, a landscape, or but a piece of drapery—there is in every sketch in this collection that convincing stamp on the work which proves that the doing of it interested and delighted the artist; the test, in other words, that the work has in it the true fibre of the most genuine art. It is well to draw attention to this fact, because his abnormal industry has apparently been considered by some to be a sign of his having been deficient in rare and native art instincts. Some there are who hold that the most notable characteristic in Leighton's nature was an extraordinary power of will. That he exercised such a power is undoubtedly true. In no other manner could he have achieved the main purposes of his life, but surely those who knew him best, and who were in the position best to appreciate his art, would say rather that such an exercise of will was used in the service of a still more powerful ingredient, in the truly leading passion of his life, the moving motive of all his labours, i.e. a reverent worship of beauty. Much has been said and written,—even, strange to say, with respect to the great exhibition of his works exhibited at Burlington House in the winter of 1897,—which implies that the scholarly element outweighed the qualities resulting from natural gifts. Happily, the unprejudiced mind of the widest public was not deluded into sparing its praise by unappreciative or unintelligent criticism. Those who had not the opportunity at the Burlington House Exhibition of judging for themselves of the very great qualities Lord Leighton's art possesses, have but to study the collection of drawings in his house in order to realise that his gifts as an artist were as rare and native as was the intellect and splendour of nature which made his personality one of the most striking of his era.
A strong dramatic power is shown in many of Leighton's early designs, and the best examples of these have been secured for this national collection. Of the "Plague in Florence" (project for a picture), a notable example, there is a photograph by Mr. Fred Hollyer (No. 175), taken for Lord Leighton, the original sketch being in South Kensington Museum. The evidence of this power recurs at intervals in the later work in such pictures as "Heracles struggling with Death for the Body of Alcestis" (No. 54), "Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon" (No. 7), (in this picture the colour carries out the imaginative and truly-felt dramatic instinct with singular power and beauty), "Orpheus and Eurydice" (No. 236), "St. Jerome," "The Last Watch of Hero" (No. 28), "Rizpah" (No. 193), and in the last work exhibited in the Royal Academy after Lord Leighton's death, "Clytie" (No. 27), the sun-loving soul bidding farewell to this world. But in many of the later works, as the artist grew older, as the drama of real life became more absorbing and intricate, as the struggle to sustain the interests of the art of his country fell more and more directly on him individually, he seemed to turn with a sense of relief to the more serene, passive sentiment of such pictures as "Idyll," "Winding the Skein" (No. 198), "Summer Slumber" (No. 94), "The Bath of Psyche," as a contrast to the pressure and restless fever of his active life. The tenderness of feeling, such as is invariably united with the highest manly qualities, finds expression throughout every stage of Leighton's art development, most notably in the drawing and painting of children. (Children had the greatest fascination for him.) In "Elisha and the Shunammite's Son" (No. 207), the tenderness is as touching as it is unobtrusive. "Sister's Kiss" (No. 275), and "Return of Persephone" (No. 53), are both examples in which wholesome, loving, human feeling is depicted with exquisite tenderness. In "Captive Andromache" (No. 21), such feeling in the group of the caressing parents and child is used as a contrast to enforce the loneliness of the captive widow. In "Ariadne abandoned by Theseus: Artemis releases her by Death" (many studies for which are in the collection still unframed), the whole picture breathes a feeling of tenderness which is in a high sense pathetic. In the sketches for "Michael Angelo nursing his Dying Servant" (No. 192), even more than in the completed picture, is seen evidence of the manly tender-heartedness which was a notable characteristic in Leighton's nature.
The hundreds of sketches and drawings now hung on the walls of the Leighton House form a diary of the artist's working life.
Here are records of the earliest student days in Florence in 1842. When twelve years old he studied at the Academy there under Bezzuoli and Servolini. Professor Costa writes of these two masters: "They were celebrated Florentines, excellent good men, but they could give but little light to this star, which was to become one of the first magnitude. Leighton, from his innate kindness, loved and esteemed his old masters much, though not agreeing in the judgment of his fellow-students, that they should be considered on the same level as the ancient Florentines. 'And who have you,' said Leighton one day to a certain Bettino (who is still living), 'who resembles your ancient masters?' And Bettino answered, 'We have still to-day our great Michael Angelos, and Raffaels, in Bezzuoli, in Servolini, in Ciseri.' But this boy of twelve years old could not believe this, and one fine day got into the diligence and left the Academy of Florence to return to England. Although the diligence went at a great pace, his fellow-students followed it on foot, running behind it, crying, 'Come back, Inglesino! come back, Inglesino! come back!' so much was he loved and respected. He did come back, in fact, many times to Italy, which he considered as his second fatherland."
There are also many records of the studies in Germany when Leighton was working under Steinle, of all his masters the one for whom he felt the greatest enthusiasm. The drawing in the collection which shows most clearly the influence of Steinle's teaching, was made on the journey from Frankfort to Rome in 1852. The subject is a monk leading a man away from his enemy and teaching him a lesson in forgiveness. It is signed, "Ulm, F.L., /52" (No. 251).