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, Géréme, 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 théme qui a 
le plus souvent et le mieux inspiré M. Leighton. Et cela il ne l’a 
pas trouvé en France, ni ailleurs. C’est bien une idée 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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