GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



sought after the secret of painting air and sunshine, looked to 

 Turner rather than to Constable. 



It is, however, a cardinal doctrine of my artistic faith that 

 every sincere painter be he pigmy or giant, unconsciously gives 

 us in his picture, his personal " impression " of the things he 

 paints, and of their relative value in his eyes and that, therefore, 

 " impressionism " in its wider sense, is nothing new ; for as long 

 ago as the days of Titian, Tintoret, and Rembrandt (I am leaving 

 Velasquez out of count, because he is always claimed by the 

 avowed Impressionists) all great artists recognized more or less 

 the vast importance of selection and emphasis in Art, of the just 

 subordination of the lesser to the greater, and were therefore 

 " Impressionists," though they did not entirely eliminate all 

 detail. 



The happy result of all this was, that, by the time Frederick 

 Leighton was established in London, there had already been a 

 slow but steady broadening of Academic sympathies, and a welcome 

 slackening of Academic rules shown not only in a wider tolerance 

 of new styles and methods but in the admission of women to the 

 training in the Fine Arts given in the schools at Burlington House 

 those schools in which Lord Leighton' s interest was always 

 great. I think it is right here to pause to express the gratitude 

 that all women artists ought to feel to the courageous lady, Laura 

 Herford by name whose act had first led to the opening of the 

 door of the Academy Schools to her sex. Aware that a woman 

 was then ineligible as a student, she sent in the required specimen 

 of work, concealing from the authorities that it was not by a 

 man. It was accepted and although I am ignorant of the details 

 of the story I know that she so urged her claim that she was 

 admitted as a probationer, and in due time, as a student. I have 

 often thought that she, the only woman in that place must have 

 endured a good deal of discomfort and ridicule, and perhaps of 

 veiled opposition for, as I found out to my cost, a good many 

 years later young men even embryo artists are not always 

 chivalrous. I am not aware that she even made her mark in a 

 profession which it is possible that she never seriously intended 

 to follow her aim may have been merely to prepare the way for 

 others but her niece, Helen Paterson better known as Mrs. 

 Allingham, has most certainly done so. 



302 



