THE WORK OF E BLAIR LEIGHTON
Mr BLAIR LEIGHTON can always be counted upon to contribute an important picture to the annual exhibition at Burlington House, and as this is the twenty-second consecutive year he has been represented at the Royal Academy he has a very good record at his back, and one that should stand him in good stead at some future election; for whatever the critics have to say, there can be no doubt that the members of that institution recognise consistent and capable effort. A painter has to prove himself by sending good work time after time, and not merely on a rare occasion, as is the way with some wayward, fitful geniuses, who astonish one year, only to grieve it the next by their apparent want of capacity, and their inability to carry through an idea with that completeness and true vision which marks the truly great artist.
There is so much of the flash-in-the-pan art abroad, which startles one by its glamour, and then leaves one blinded, and then in darkness, as though we had been looking at some firework. If one took the trouble to think of the pictures which in their day lent distinction to the Royal Academy, contributed by artists unknown to the general public, it would be found that their authors were, too often, successful apparently by chance rather than because they were men of talent, if not of genius, able to follow up the first success rather than by that which gave him his first recognition, and raised him above the shoulders of the crowd.
I have to confess that I have been shown work, and have been asked to admire it, and that by those whose opinions were deserving of attention, which seem to me so inchoate-a mere striving after the unreachable-that I found myself wondering whether it was a proof that I knew nothing about painting, or whether the work I was asked to admire was foolishly praised, though of course, I concluded that the latter was the case. Artist suffer from one injustice at the hands of a certain school of critics who take up a dogmatic position and judge all work with a parti pris, when their qualification for the function they have assumed could be shown by their ability to see the work under review from the point of view of the worker, and opportunity would be then given to indicate
Shortcomings, while at the same time the critic could recognise what was of good report, and so do justice to the artist.
In the Palace of Art are many mansions. It is also well to keep clearly before one promise and striving and achievement. One can always recall a few pictures at each Academy which one feels deserve generous recognition, and which one would like to admire, instead of only regretting that the carrying out of the idea was so halting and experimental. The loftiest ideas inadequately realised add very little to an artist’s renown, and there can be no question that criticism is on safe grounds when it deals with workmanship. And this leads up to the consideration of Mr. Blair Leighton’s work, for the work itself can speak eloquently for him in the pages of THE ART JOURNAL.
Mr.
Blair Leighton’s work falls under two heads;
domestic genre, such as
“Launched in Life” and the numerous works of
this kind made popular by photogravure-for no work is more popular than his
among publishers-and his large historical works, good examples of which
accompanied these notes. In the 1899 Academy Mr. Blair Leighton was represented
by “Elaine,”, a large canvas picturing the bringing of the body of the
“Lily Maid of Astolat” to Westminster. I had the privilege of viewing this
picture during its progress, and it is only by seeking a work of this magnitude
brought to completion that one realises what a long, arduous, and expensive
business the painting of a big picture is. There is no slurring over the
difficulties or falling back upon suggestion in Mr. Blair Leighton’s picture:
every detail is thought out and painted with all the power and skill the artist
possesses. But by this method of work Mr. Blair Leighton falls an easy prey to
the sneering, cynical superior young person, who pronounces his opinions with
all the assurance of ignorance and self-sufficiency. Where no one knows what the
painter’s intention is, owing to its vague presentment, it is difficult to
corner him : there is always a loophole for escape; but where everything is
realised with workmanlike thoroughness it requires little perception to point to
the shortcomings. Everyone deserves recognition who carries a work through to a
successful issue, for the Palace of Art, like a certain other place is paved
with good intentions. Our exhibitions would be fuller of masterpieces were all
painters given persistence, or the faculty for taking pains, as well as the
imagination and desire to achieve greatness.
Of
the open-air subjects which are the most popular of Mr. Blair Leighton’s
works, judging by the way that publishers reproduce them, those with just a
couple of figures –“Journeys Ending in Lovers’ Meetings” – are,
speaking personally, among those I most admire. In them, the painter shows his
skill in combining landscape with figures, and just hinting at a story without
“tearing a passion to tatters.” The painter falls back upon an earlier day
for his costumes, an inevitable proceeding it would seem, if one is going to
combine grace with picturesqueness, for
it is, alas! A well-recognised fact that the well-dressed man of the moment, be
he in boating, cycling, or shooting costume, is very difficult to introduce
successfully into a picture. Women’s dress is far easier to handle
pictorially, but even here to date it by fashion is a mistake. Figures of
peasants do not suffer from this defect, as the every-day dress of toilers in
the field can be made to yield the most artistic results, as Mr Clausen and Mr
Edward Stott so constantly remind us; it is when you are higher up the social
ladder that the difficulties begin. Mr. Blair Leighton, very wisely, goes for a
certain decorative quality, which he secures, partly by the refinement and
elegance with which he invests his figures, and partly by the method of
execution and colour scheme. You may call it conventional if you will, but it is
at least Mr. Blair Leighton’s convention; it hall-marks his work, so that at a
glance we know it is a Blair Leighton.
Telling a story in paint has ceased to be an artist’s chief aim. The painters of an earlier generation were mainly concerned in this squeezing of anecdotes out of tubes-they were novelists and dramatists in turns. Though the story-telling quality will not gloss over a painter’s poor equipment, it does not, as some seem to think, stand in the way of a really good piece of work. If the picture is beautiful-something that will decorate the walls-then the story really doesn’t matter, as it keeps its place in the general scheme. It is only where the story is everything and the workmanship une quantite negligable that the critic’s fine sense is offended; and it often happens that the painter who has a story to tell becomes enamoured of his tale and not only over-emphasises it, but troubles too little about aesthetic charm and capable workmanship. It amuses one, the pint of view some critics take, when noticing a modern collection, so exclusive are they: seeing out of two thousand odd works not more than half a dozen that they can single out for qualified praise. This surely cannot be a fair way of reviewing the strenuous efforts of some hundreds of trained workmen, who display, in many cases the results of twelve months’ hard work This exclusiveness comes from putting the efforts of the exhibitors against some masterpieces of the world, a very dwarfing proceeding if applied to very department of activity. Were all the critics engaged in some productive art-work themselves, instead of reviewing, or rather telling the world what they think of the efforts of others, we should have less sweeping condemnation and more appreciation. There is much of the story-telling element in Mr. Blair Leighton’s work, for he feels that the human element in a picture is as important as the laying-on of colours and other purely technical matters, which partly accounts for his wide popularity; for the public cannot be supposed to enter into all the niceties of technique, nor do they like being given enigmas in paint, which baffle their understanding and tantalise their perceptions.
Those critics who condemn on every opportunity pictures with a story in them, must find it difficult at times to know what work to leave out of this category. Any human interest in a picture introduces this element. It is the overdoing of the drama, over-insistence on the literary quality in a picture, that is to be condemned. Yet one hears it said that anything approaching a story in a picture dams it as art. Surely Art is too vague and evasive a thing to allow itself to be caught in a critic’s net, pinned, labelled, and pigeon-holed like a museum specimen? That is successful, surely, in which the painter’s intention is realised with the workmanlike thoroughness; where the hand and eye and mind have all pulled together.
It
seems to me that dogma is what is fatal in criticism. A writer gets hold of an
idea, and does his best to prove it on every occasion. It is as bad as using
Shakespeare to prove that he used his plays to develop not character and the
play of human emotions-but cryptograms! How can art, the shadow of life, be
coffined in a pill-box? Which is the proceeding some among us appear to delight
in. It is all evasion, as those who handle paint know, and there can, therefore,
be no hide –bound axioms to trammel both worker and admirer. Kipling was
nearer the mark when he said “there are nine and sixty ways.”
Mr. Blair Leighton’s father was an
artist, though he died when his son was a child, but his family were not at all
desirous that the boy should follow a calling which those who have trod the path
themselves know to be full of pitfalls. The youth was, therefore put into an
office where he remained some years, though the artistic instinct was kept alive
by work in the evening at Heatherley’s. Silver was none too plentiful, and it
was not until young Blair Leighton had saved enough money to keep himself while
making his first serious effort in art that that he could essay to follow the
calling to which his inclinations called him. Three months were spent in making
his drawing from the antique, in the British Museum, to become a probationer in
the Academy Schools, and this being accepted, our student worked hard for a year
in the schools; and what a delirious time this was can only be realised by those
who have for a while been forced
into a line of work quite foreign to their tastes. But the money he saved had
now become exhausted, and young Blair Leighton had to face the stern fact of
existence, earn a living, and perhaps his previous business training stood him
in good stead; at all events he started making black-and-white drawings for
Cassells and other publications, confining his work in the schools to the night
classes. It
is one thing to follow art as a calling; quite another to earn a living at it.
The former can, as a rule, only be accomplished by those who have their
breakfasts and dinners secured for a time, if not to the end of the chapter, as
they can wait like Corot, until the world accepts them at their own valuation.
If they are Millets, then they must starve for years.
One
may remark en passant, touching this
matter of following art and earning
a living by it , which, we will allow, do not necessarily overlap, that though
the world has, for a while, passed by the work of those it finally ends up in
exalting, it is, on the other hand, in the long run, the only sure and therefore
just critic, and it will be found, when one comes to enumerate the names of
those who have been neglected in their life-time, that they are little more
talked about now, Chatterton to wit, whose tragic end did more for his name than
the works he wrote. Earning one’s living is not at all a bad part of one’s
apprenticeship, as it forces one out of one’s prepossession, and compels one
to take fresh points of view; and it certainly has to be admitted that the bulk
of the good work, in art, in the world has been done for the simplest of all
reasons, to pay landlord, butcher, and baker.
But
this was the journey-work which most of us have to do if we could reach the goal
of our desires, and our student had grit enough in him to use circumstance as a
stepping-stone to higher things. He wanted to be a painter, and meeting with
success the first time of sending a picture to the Royal Academy, he determined
to throw the whole of his energy into painting, though there were many
temptations to continue drawing for magazines, and, since exhibiting twenty-two
years ago, Mr. Blair Leighton has devoted himself exclusively to painting in
oil. This devotion to one idea marks the man, and if I could sum up the painter
in two words, I think they would be persistence and thoroughness. Carlyle’s
rendering of Goethe’s verse is apposite :
The
mason’s ways are a type of existence,
Mr.
Blair Leighton lives at Bedford park, where he has a very pleasant and
picturesque studio attached to his
house. The large recessed fireplace is a striking feature of the room, and, by
letting in two small windows on either side of the fireplace he has greatly
added to the ensemble. The painter has, during his wander-jahre,
picked up quite a collection of old furniture, arms, metal-work, pottery,
and other relics of the past, which not only adds greatly to a visitor’s
interest in looking round the place, but gives the atelier that air of
distinction and uncommonness which is so inspiring to aesthetic sense, and must
tell in a man’s work.
In
looking through examples of Mr. Blair Leighton’s works, given by courtesy of
those who own the originals, one is struck, first of all, by the painstaking,
loving quality exhibited in carrying out the idea with the accomplishment
characteristic of the artist. There is no tiring as the work progresses, though
the painter would tell you, doubtless, that he felt tired enough before the
canvas left his hands; but like the persistent worker he stick to his canvas
until it satisfies his sense of workmanship.
There
can be no question that we do admire, all of us, that loving absorption in work
which tells us that the producer did what he could “to amend what flaws may
lurk, what strain I’ the stuff, what warpings passed the aim,” and though
this does not conflict with the Whistlerian dictum that “work should efface
the footsteps of work” (our old friend ars est celare artem) it
does point out what the tyro is apt to lose sight of, that the result, however
it may be reached, must exhibit the triumph of the worker over his material,
which saying includes the love of the material itself, and the using of it to
the fullest advantage. “Launched in Life” is one of the
painter’s suave and one might also say, genteel efforts, though its popular
and pleasing qualities are attested by its success as a publication. The world
went very well then, evidently, and that is, after all, what a very large number
of us wish to dwell upon rather than search into the human heart and go
muck-raking in human nature. The world doesn’t to many, go very well now :
hence the desire, kindled by art “to live the idea.” Those who seem to fail
in getting much joie de vivre in their
pilgrimage, are the more ready to catch a scintillation of it by reflection. “The
Question” is a good example of the painter in his more sentimental vein.
“Tis the ever new, but old, old story, where journey’s end in lovers’
meetings. In the painting of this class of subject the artist seems inevitably
to fall back to other times than ours, owing to the difficulty of making modern
costume picturesque. To date a picture by reference to pattern seems fatal, so
painters go back and “stretch a hand through time.” Figures in modern
costume in a landscape often produce a jarring feeling, for the region of
artificiality is then reached, where human passions seem out of place; and a man
making love in trousers is apt to look, in paint, like a man making himself
ridiculous-as indeed he may be for that matter. There are some who go so far as
to say that if one introduces figures into a landscape, one must deal only with
those whose only environment is nature in all her pathetic simplicity-Francois
Millet’s men and women-but these exacting statements have the same effect as
the innocence that protests too much. People like grace and refinement in paint
as well as their opposites, and there is no reason they should not be catered
for.
“In
Time of Peril” is at the other end of the swing of Mr. Blair Leighton’s
pendulum. The picture belongs to the school of historical genre, though it is
only historical in the sense of being dramatic and costumed, to coin a word to
describe those works in which costume plays an important part. Whatever critics
may say derogatory of costume pictures, they may make up their minds that such
pictures will always be painted, and appreciated too, for the artist using the
word in its genuine sense, turns away from things of the moment and endeavours
to lose himself in the past, which “Wins such glory by it being far.”
“King Cophetua” is a subject that has often been handled by painters, and visitors
to the Burne-Jones Collection will possibly think of that artist’s rendering
when looking at the present work. They do not challenge comparison, for no two
representations could be more opposite in spirit or treatment.
“The
Secret” is a little more emotional than the other examples of Mr. Blair
Leighton’s art. Such pictures in which the whole of life is focussed in a
moment, must always present the greatest difficulties a painter can grapple
with. Personally, I question whether these subjects are worth the stress and
endeavour to carry them through.
“Lady Godiva” shows another aspect of that oft painted story, and one not often
touched upon, for the subject, it must be admitted, is chosen by most painters
to show their skill in painting the nude. It must be said that Mr. Blair
Leighton subordinates himself to his subjects, and does not use them to air
theories or his skill in using paint or dextrous turns of the brush; and a good
many students who just now dwell on such maters to the exclusion of all else
will, when they have travelled further down the road, let technicalities keep
their place in the scheme. “The Return of the Regiment”, has an appositeness just now
when we have a war of greater magnitude on hand than has ever happened before,
if we consider the sending of 200,000 men 7,000 miles. Such a scene as “The
Return of the Regiment” might be painted we trust, before the year is much
older, for the famous regiment here depicted (now known as the 2nd
Dragoons) is at present serving in South Africa. But the early nineteenth
century costumes, which the artist has made such use of, would be lacking in an
up-to-date rendering of the subject. The Scots Greys are shown bearing the
French standard captured at Waterloo, and it will be remembered that this same
regiment in Lady Butler’s popular picture “Scotland For Ever.” The
women-folk look on the scene from an iron balcony, and the charm with which
these figures and the little boy are painted is an admirable example of Mr.
Blair Leighton’s art.
And
his persistence
Is
as the ways of man upon the earth.”
Firstly what an excellent article by Fred Miller, who like Fred Ross of Art Renewal, and my late lamented brother-in-law, is in my view, one of the great Freds! Now to more serious comment.
In the first paragraph mention is made of the regularity of the exhibition, by the painter, of his work at the Royal Academy, and that this bodes well for his future prospects. In fact Blair Leighton did not become an Academician or an Associate. The article amounts to a robust defence of the painter, and the quality and nature of his work. Miller mentions visiting the studio of the artist, and seeing for himself what an arduous undertaking the painting of a large, highly finished picture is. He also stresses the depth and excellence of the workmanship, and the lack of any tendency to compromise standards towards the end of working on a large picture. I have also admired these facets of Blair Leighton’s work for quite some time. It is somewhat amusing to note that the Victorians did not regard their own style of dress as in any way picturesque, which is difficult for us to imagine today.
PHR 27 May 2004