GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



of whom and of his Pre-Raphaelite brothers all the Art world was 

 talking, he exclaimed : " Millais, my boy, I have met in Rome 

 a versatile young dog called Leighton, who will one of these days 

 run you hard for the Presidency." 



Leighton's first picture of any importance, " The Cimabue 

 Madonna," was painted in Rome ; and being exhibited in London 

 in the Academy of 1855, attracted great attention, and was pur- 

 chased by the Queen for six hundred pounds. Yet it does not 

 appear that its success established the painter's position. The 

 critics, we are told, were puzzled by him, and did not know where 

 to place him. Holman-Hunt and Millais were known, and had 

 made their mark but " who was Leighton ? " The question was 

 answered in the sixties, when, after an interregnum during which 

 the artist again visited the Continent there appeared year after 

 year at the Royal Academy, works revealing a passionate love of 

 beauty, an unrivalled feeling for form, and glowing with southern 

 colour. 



Leighton, it was clear, was a worshipper of classic art ; indeed, 

 founded himself upon it, yet owed much to French influences 

 to Bouguereau, Gerome, and Robert Fleury. The critics were 

 divided ; though classed by Ruskin as the true successor of 

 Correggio while certain French writers on Art missed in his style 

 " some attractive British singularity," others discovered in him 

 qualities essentially English. It was not, however, until some 

 years later that one of these wrote : " La Grandeur de la com- 

 munion humaine, la noblesse de la paix, tel est le theme qui a 

 le plus souvent et le mieux inspire M. Leighton. Et cela il ne 1'a 

 pas trouve en France, ni ailleurs. C'est bien une idee anglaise." 



In the heyday of Lord Leighton's artistic and social success, no 

 disturbing and anarchic forces arose, to bewilder the Art-loving 

 public, and bring despair into the hearts of most serious painters, 

 as they have done of late. 



It is true that " flung straight on to the bosom of Nature, where 

 safety is," as Lord Leighton once finely said in another connec- 

 tion, the Pre-Raphaelites had done much to break down the 

 barbed wire of conventionalism, and had even forced an entrance 

 into the sacred enclosure of the Royal Academy. But it was a 

 very mild and modified Pre-Raphaelitism that obtained a footing 

 there ; for there was something in the atmosphere of the Royal 



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