LEIGHTON HOUSE 



I do not know how long it was after this that permission was 

 given for thirteen women students Helen Paterson and the late 

 Edith Martineau among them to work in the schools, but as this 

 took place in the days when the Royal Academy occupied rooms 

 in the National Gallery and was cramped for space the number 

 working there at one time never exceeded the proverbial baker's 

 dozen. 



Yet notwithstanding that they were so greatly in the minority, 

 a young American lady Louisa Starr, afterwards Madame Canziani 

 first woman to win the gold medal for historical painting over 

 the head of her more favoured fellow- students, had proved, before 

 the Academy removed to Burlington House, that women were 

 capable of becoming good painters. 



It was in the seventies, after the migration to Piccadilly, that 

 the restrictions as to number were abolished ; but for a long time 

 after this women were debarred from attendance at anatomical 

 lectures, and denied the study of the figure from life a branch of 

 art-education that is of first importance, and for which, in the case 

 of the men, every facility was afforded. In my time we were 

 limited to drawing from the antique, and painting drapery on the 

 lay-figure, to still-life, copying old masters, and to painting heads 

 from the costume model in the Upper Painting School. There, of 

 course, we had the benefit of the instruction of the greatest artists 

 of the day. 



I have heard it objected to the Academy training that the change 

 of masters monthly, must confuse the student ; Millais, Calderon, 

 and Pettie, for example, in my time, advocating the practice which 

 seeks to get at once as near to nature as possible ; Leighton, recom- 

 mending an elaborate preparation, by under-painting ; but in a 

 multitude of counsellors there is wisdom, and a student of capacity, 

 while learning something from each, may be trusted to adopt the 

 practice that suits him best, bringing all to the test of his own 

 experience : not many of us, I think, adopted one dear old Acade- 

 mician's recipe for flesh-painting, which, whether the model posing 

 were a brunette or a blonde, was invariably "black, white, and 

 indian red." 



These reminiscences of very happy days, are leading one by a 

 very circuitous route to the garden of Leighton House ; but Lord 

 Leighton's last words were, " Give my love to the Royal Academy," 



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