Sir Frederick Leighton 1830 - 1896
Sir Frederick Leighton , second child. artist. He was made a member of the Royal Academy in 1869, and president in 1878, the same year he was knighted. In 1886 he was made a baronet, and then a baron just one day before his death (the first English painter to be so honoured). Victorian Art in Britain Obituary - Lord Leighton 1830-1896 The Times Monday 27th 1896. Death of Lord Leighton We announce with deep regret the death of Lord Leighton, President of the Royal Academy, which took place on Saturday afternoon at his residence, 2 Holland Park Road Kensington. Early last year Sir Frederic Leighton, as he then was, saw his friend Dr Lander Brunton, and subsequently Sir William Broadbent, in association with his usual medical attendant, Dr Roberts for some heart affection. He was with some difficulty dissuaded from presiding at the Academy dinner, and went abroad to Algeria. Since then, though frequently suffering attacks of pain, he continued to fulfil most of his numerous appointments. Last Monday he caught a slight cold, but seemed fairly to have recovered, when, on Thursday morning severe symptoms set in suddenly, and Dr Roberts and Dr Lander Brunton were early in attendance. On Thursday evening pain and heart distress became very severe, and Dr Barton sat by his bedside all night. The pain and difficulty in breathing increasing it was decided in the early hours of Friday morning to administer morphia, which greatly relieved him; and after some hours quiet sleep he woke so much relieved that some hope of recovery was entertained. The pain was incessant all Friday, but was partially relieved by morphia, and even then hope was not abandoned. Dr Barton again remained with him all Friday night, and undertook the nursing, but on Saturday morning a change for the worse set in, and the gravest fears were entertained. About noon it became evident that the end was fast approaching, the pain and distress becoming intense, and he passed away a few hours later, the last moments being free from pain, due to the merciful administration of chloroform. At his bedside were his two sisters, Mrs Matthews and Mrs Sutherland Orr, Dr Barton, Mr Prinsep RA, and his intimate friend Mr S Pepys Cockerell. To them he uttered almost his last words, `Love to the Academy and all its members.' To the public at large Lord Leighton's death will have come as a painful shock. It was hoped that he had fully recovered from his illness of last Spring-a hope that seemed to be confirmed by his recent visits to the Royal Academy on the occasion of the students prize-giving on December 11 and at a private Academy dinner on the last day of the year, when he was able to announce that the Queen had honoured him with the offer of a peerage. It was understood a day or two later that he would take the title Lord Leighton. He attended also a meeting of the council of the Academy as lately as the 9th of this month; and he has frequently appeared and chatted with friends at the Athenaeum Club, a favourite resort of his in the afternoon. The news of Lord Leighton's death was telegraphed to the Queen by officials of the Royal Academy, and her Majesty has telegraphed a message of condolence to Lord Leighton's sisters. Messages of sympathy and condolence were left at Lord Leighton's home throughout yesterday. A telegram was sent by the Prince of Wales. The callers included Mr F A Eaton secretary to the Royal Academy, Sir Frederick Burton, Mr Walter Ouless RA, Mr Colin Hunter ARA, and Mrs Hunter, Mr Philip Calderon RA, Colonel Ellis who succeeded the late Lord Leighton in the command of the 20th Middlesex (Artist's) Rifle Volunteers, Mr John Sargent ARA, Mr Frampton ARA, Mr Harry Bates ARA and Mrs Bates, Mr and Mrs C E Perugini, Sir Nathaniel Staples and Mr J R Ponsonby Staples, Mr George W Joy, Mr G Henschel, Mr W E Lockhart RSA, Mr John Leighton, Mr and Mrs Arthur Lucas, Mr Seymour Lucas ARA, and Mrs Lucas, Mr Alfred East, Mr and Mrs Arthur James Lewis, Lieutenant Stanley Clarke (20th Middlesex), Mr Kiallmark, and Mr Charlie W Wyllie. It is true in a sense, that art is of no particular country; but in the present case, while the whole world of art is the poorer for the loss of Lord Leighton, England especially has to mourn for one of her most distinguished men. No other artist of the Victorian age has done better work, has been better known in the world, or has filled a larger space in the eyes of the public. The Presidency of the Academy gave him a public position; but he was already eminent more than a quarter of a century ago , when Lord Beaconsfield , introducing a great artist into his novel `Lothair,' portrayed most of Leighton's most remarkable features, and to some extent characterised his genius. He had, indeed, very various gifts, and excelled in so many directions as to almost convey the impression that painting was less the business of his life than an incidental accomplishment. `Paints too,' was the epigrammatic remark of one of his brother artists; and Sir John Millais presiding, in Leighton's absence, at last year's annual Academy dinner spoke of him with equal truth and compliment as `our admirable Leighton-painter, sculptor, orator, linguist, musician, soldier, and above all, a dear good fellow.' As Sir John Millais's epithet suggests he was a Crichton among painters, a follower not of one muse but of many, a man whose insight into all forms of art raised him above other artists of his time. The Academy, moreover, which admired him for those reasons owes much to him for his fidelity to its interests, and for his great efficiency as its President. He had courtesy, tact, and sympathy; a fine presence, and much personal distinction. His pictures spoke for themselves; but his biennial addresses to the students of the Academy, elaborate the results of learning and observation, proved his knowledge of arts other than his own. Whenever it was necessary for him to appear in public, either as the representative of British art, or as spokesman of his fellow Academicians, he played his part with a happy mixture of dignity and vivacity. At the annual dinners of the Academy his speeches, optimistic as they were, and somewhat florid, were never commonplace, but expressed even well-worn sentiments with verbal novelty. They were essentially speeches of an artist-as, for instance, when he said of Linnell that `on his canvas the drowsy reaper nods beneath the sheaf, the shepherd pipes and watches, the new-felled timber strews the ground or strains the wagon's aching wheel.' In this, as in many other passages that might be quoted, the artist does not for a moment forget art, but only exchanges one mode of expression for another. Here is the true artistic instinct, many-sided and appreciative , and based on a general sense of beauty that might easily have made him a poet or an architect as well as a painter and sculptor. But life as the truism has it, is short, and Leighton's life though full and energetic, was not even relatively long. He was born at Scarborough in December 1830, the son of Mr Frederick Septimus Leighton by a daughter of Mr G A Nash. His grandfather Sir James B Leighton was physician to the Empress of Russia and chief of the Medical Department of the Imperial Navy. His father, also was a physician, but, in consequence of his wife's ill-health, relinquished his practice and lived and traveled on The Continent. Young Leighton's talent for drawing showed itself at a very early age, and was so far encouraged that when the family were in Paris in 1839, he received a few lessons from the well-known George Lance. The next winter or two were spent in Rome, where the boy had drawing lessons from Fillipo Meli. Then came visits to Dresden and Berlin, and more art teaching, and a longer stay for the purposes of general education at Frankfurt-on-the-Main. It was at Florence in the winter of 1846, that his father yielding to young Leightons wishes allowed him to make art his profession. Hiram Powers, the American sculptor was consulted by Mr Leighton. `Your son,' said he `may be as eminent as he pleases.' `Shall I make him an artist?' asked the father' `No, nature has made done it for you,' and accordingly an artist he became. The gifts of nature, however, were supplemented by a variety of good training at Paris, Frankfurt, and Brussels. At Brussels the artist painted his first serious picture `Cimbue finding Giotto drawing in the fields' At Frankfurt he spent several years under the tuition of R Steinle, Professor of Historical Painting in the Academy. `The Death of Brunellsco,' is an early work belonging to this period. Three winters in Rome followed, in the course of which he painted his first great work, `Cimbue and his Friends and Scholars at Florence accompanying his picture of the Madonna to the church of Santa Maria Novellla.' This was in the RA of 1855, and was bought by the Queen. From that time Leighton never failed to secure admission to exhibitions of the Academy, but began a long series of successes. `The Triumph of Music,' `The Fisherman and the Siren,' and `Romeo and Juliet,'- all of them at the RA-were the work of the next four years, which were spent mostly in Paris. `Capri- Sunrise,' recalls a visit to the island in 1859. `Paolo and Francesca,' and `The Star of Bethlehem,' bring us to 1864, in which year he was made an Associate of the RA. Soon afterwards he made a long tour in Spain, and on his return settled in London, in Holland Park Road. From this period date the majority of his important works-works that not only brought him the success in the material sense of the word, but also proved to his countrymen that they had among them a great classical artist. The sensation, perhaps, was novel, for our great artists had usually been distinctively British and indigenous and lost little or nothing of their nationality in their treatment in their treatment of classical subjects. But here was an Englishman striking a true classical note, and not lured into mere archeology, but going on from strength to strength till at last his art seemed to culminate in `The Daphnephoria.' In this great picture, which is comparable only to `Cimbue,' of 20 years before, the artist shows a long and admirably grouped and animated procession of young men and maidens to the Temple of Apollo at Thebes. It has like others of Leighton's works, a decorative background of dark pines and cedars, and in the multitude of its figures it contains not one that is not drawn with the utmost grace of line. The public, no doubt, felt the force of the maxim Omni ignotum pro maginifico, and admired without appreciation; but that did not signify, for the work-it was nearly 20 ft long-was a private commission, and was painted for the country house of Mr Stewart Hodgson. This was in 1876; but the preceding ten years had been rendered notable by such works as `Venus Unrobing, Daedalus and Icarus, Electra, Clytemnaestra, Eastern Slinger, and Hercules wrestling with Death for the body of Alcestia,' which was one of the pictures of the year in 1871, and one of the best ever painted by Leighton; it had the honour of being referred to by Browning in his poem 'Balaustion's Adventure.' But the `Eastern Slinger,' is, on the whole, the most classical, as it is certainly the most statuesque and the most virile. The slinger, it will be remembered stands on a platform raised in the middle of a standing cornfield. He is all but nude, and is in the act of discharging his sling against a bird. In the distance, on another low platform, is a second man scaring birds in the same way, but the whole interest of the drawing centres on the drawing of the chief figure. The personal event of these ten years was the election of the artist as a full Academician in 1868, an honour as certain as it was well-deserved. In 1879 the death of Sir Francis Grant, the portrait painter deprived the Academy of its President. The loss was great, for Sir F Grant had the social as well as the professional qualifications it was desirable to find in his successor. No one was surprised when the vacant office was bestowed on Leighton. The singular efficiency with which he performed the various and onerous duties of his post has already been referred to. It is entertaining to recall-As Sir J Millais did at last year's annual dinner-the words in which Thackeray prophesied half in joke young Leighton's coming eminence `Milliais my boy, I've met the most versatile young dog you ever heard of. His name's Leighton, and if you don't mind he'll run you hard for the presidentship some day. The honour of a knighthood in the same year was a matter of course, and a baronetcy followed in 1886, the peerage only having been bestowed on the first day of the present year. It may be that the `Daphnephoria' of 1876 remains an unsurpassed example of Leighton's pictures, but not a year has since passed without at leas one memorable work from his easel. Among them will be specially remembered the large and imaginative `Elisha raising the son of the Shunamite, Elijah in the Wilderness,' also on a large scale; `The Light of the Harem, Phryne at Eleusis,' and in the last Academy Exhibition `Lachrymae, and Flaming June.' These, of course, were all of them at the Academy. At The Grosvenor Gallery, besides some charming sketches of Damascus, the record of an Eastern tour, were a good many of his minor pictures, and some of his portraits, 'Mrs Algernon Sartoris,' for instance, and Miss Stewart Hodgson.' But his portraits, able as they were, were not numerous. We may mention chiefly his own portrait, a full face, painted by himself, for the collection at the Uffizi; `Professor G Costa'; `Sir E Ryan'; Countess Brownlow'; `Captain Burton,' 1876, an extremely fine head, almost in profile; `Lady Sybil Primrose.' These works ,the few that we have named to say nothing of the minor pictures that came from his studio and the mass of sketches and studies that remained in it, would surely be enough for a longer life than Leighton's. But so various was his activity that besides all this, besides his official and literary work in connection with the Academy, he found or made time for sculpture, for fresco-painting, for traveling, for society, for public speeches, and for Volunteering. He was one of the earliest members of the Artists' Rifle Corps and subsequently its colonel; and he took a deep interest in its welfare and efficiency. As might be gathered from his active interest in the Volunteer movement, Leighton though formed on Greek and Italian rather than English art, was an ardent patriot. He also took an interest in the larger issues of politics; he was a member of the original Liberal Unionist Association in 1886; and rejoiced in the last days of his life, in the spirit shown by the country under menace from the East and West, and in the determination universally shown to increase our defensive preparations. On so popular a man honours fell quite naturally. His genius was recognised in this country by the Presidency of the Academy and a baronetcy, which latter honour was merged for little more than three weeks in the only peerage that has ever been awarded to an English painter. The Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh gave him the honorary degree of DCL, and LLD. In France he was a Knight of the Legion of Honour, and in 1878, President of the International Jury of Painting at the Paris Exhibition. As Lord Leighton died unmarried the baronetcy and peerage become extinct. The honours that were showered on him only ratified the opinion of him formed by his friends in all classes, from the Royal to the Bohemian, to whom he was endeared by his many social qualities, his buoyant and cheerful spirit, his ready sympathy, his unfailing generosity-specially manifested towards the young and struggling artists-and, we may perhaps add, his striking personal beauty, which yet had nothing effeminate or unmanly about it. Anything like a a complete estimate of Lord Leighton's work, in relation to contemporary art, would not be possible in an obituary notice, nor perhaps, would it be appropriate. It is the artist whom we have lost, and not his works; and it seems, therefore, more proper to record the outlines of his career than to discuss his pictures. These may be left to the secure judgment of the future. But this much, at least, must be said of them, that for a variety of reasons they gave him a position apart from his brother artists, and in some respects above them. He belonged to no English school of painting, was influenced little, if at all, by English art and English traditions, and, as far as we can see, has left behind him admirers only and no disciples. Much of his strength came from what may be called, not invidiously, the un-English qualities of his art. He drew his inspiration mainly from Greece and the Italian Renaissance , and thus learned the importance of dignity of form and line and consummate drawing. He had also a fine natural sense of colour, and was fond of such harmonies of white and gold and purple and red as appear for example in “The Vestal,” “Whispers,” and “The Music Lesson.” But drawing was his delight, and not least the drawing of drapery, which he always accomplished in a most careful and learned manner, studying the every figure first in the nude, and every fold of drapery separately. Many of his studies, in chalk on tinted paper, are harming proofs of his thoroughness and industry. And as with drapery so with the nude human figure in all its attitudes; it was something more than the Paris life-school and anatomical studies at Rome that enabled him to render repose, activity, and violent exertion with the facility and truth of Greek art. His figures departed little from the classical ideal, and may sometimes have lost interest what they gained by being “faultily faultless”; but their beauty and the artist's mastery of drawing and colour are beyond dispute. And if, in consequence of the remoteness of his subjects, he rarely touched the heart, it must be admitted that in his handling of them he was frequently original and romantic. His great picture of 1892, “ And the Sea gave up the Dead which were in it,” is sufficient proof of this, without further argument. It should be remembered that Leighton was not alone a painter in oil colours. Water colour he seldom employed, and unlike other artists, he hardly ever illustrated a book-“Romola,” we believe is the only instance; but he also worked in fresco, and added sculpture to his other achievements. His best known frescos are the two large lunettes at the South Kensington Museum, representing respectively war and peace. It is a pity that there is no attainable point of view from which they can properly be seen. Another of his frescoes is the altar-piece at Lyndhurst Church, which was painted almost entirely in the course of hasty Saturday afternoon visits to that village in 1866. The subject is the Wise and Foolish Virgins, decoratively treated, and full of fine grouping and drapery. More important, and more surprising, are Leighton's excursions into the field of sculpture, “The Kindred Art” is the usual phrase, though, in truth, the aims and method of the sculptor are absolutely unlike those of the painter. The production, therefore, of two such works as “Athlete Struggling with a Python,” in 1876, and the “Sluggard,” of 1886 is a proof of remarkable versatility. The contrast too, is equally remarkable. The former which is Leighton's representative in the Chantry Gallery at South Kensington, is the very embodiment of intense, muscular effort, and the uncertainty of issue gives it a strange dramatic interest; in the latter work every joint and sinew is relaxed, and the whole figure is a type of nerveless and sensuous inertness. Much more might be, and will be written concerning the work of this great artist. We have attempted only to indicate its main features. It may be described summarily as idealistic, classical, and romantic, but not popular, except so far as all things of beauty have a limited popularity. He had no predecessors in English art, and leaves no one to succeed him. He was one of the very few men of whom it may be said, without exaggeration that his place cannot be filled. My Comments Should any one doubt the importance of the position of Lord Leighton in late Victorian art, this obituary will sweep all those doubts away. At the absolute zenith of the importance of art to the cultural and public life of the country he was its leading representative. Leighton, the man, seems almost to have been intentionally designed for this role. The combination of artistic talent, administrative skill, public relations expertise, presence, and handsome appearance made him the ideal President of the Royal Academy. In truth he was not universally liked, his predecessor Sir Francis Grant loathed him, as did George Du Maurier. The Prince of Wales described him as “prickly,” but his generosity, both financially and artistically in helping younger and less fortunate artists more than made up for any shortcomings. The mental picture of Leighton taking tea with Dorothy Dene and her cheerful cockney sisters in their small house is an appealing one. Millais, who should have been one of his main rivals, was very fond of him, and Poynter his successor hero-worshipped him. Just beneath Leighton's obituary in The Times of Monday January 27th 1896 the following notice appeared. I reproduce it without comment, as no comment is necessary. Yesterday afternoon Dr Adler, the Chief Rabbi, took part in the ceremony of laying the foundation-stone of an extension of the Hammersmith and West Kensington Synagogue at Brook Green. The stone was laid by Mr B L Cohen, M.P. The Chief Rabbi said that, while he was reluctant to introduce an element of sadness on an occasion of that kind, he was sure, that being an assembly of Englishmen, they could not meet together that day without adverting to the great and irreparable loss which the nation had suffered in the death of Lord Leighton. It was his privilege to make his acquaintance , when he was Sir Frederic Leighton, some 12 or 13 years ago, when he sat next to him at the opening of Parliament on the last occasion when the Queen performed the ceremony in person. It was, Sir Federic told him, the first occasion on which he had been present at the interesting ceremony. Since the acquaintance he had shown much kindness to the Jewish community, and only last year was a steward at the anniversary festival of the Jews Hospital, and he expressed his regret that his many engagements, just before the opening of the Royal Academy, prevented his being present on that occasion. Weightier voices than his would bear tribute to one who was so great an artist, inspired by the loftiest ideals. The colours of his canvas, as the periods of his eloquent orations, were always glowing with sunshine, beauty, and warmth of Italian skies. The country had of late suffered keen and great losses. Let the earnestly pray that the Almighty God would save and preserve them for a long period from losses so great and so keen as those which their country had had to deplore during the last few
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| Born: 13 Brunswick Terrace, Scarborough, Yorks., , England 31st Dec 1830 | Baptised:
| | Died: 12 Holland Park Road, London, , , England 25th Jan 1896 | Buried: St. Paul's Cathedral, London, , , England 5th Feb 1896
| | Family: Leighton |
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