Leighton

Before Frederic Leighton was ten, drawing had become such a powerful calling that his parents wondered whether to let him make it his profession. In Florence, the sculptor Hiram Powers settled their doubts with a verdict: “Nature had done that already.”

In this 1908 account, A. L. Baldry follows Leighton from childhood through the art schools and studios of Europe, where Rome, Florence, Brussels and Frankfurt each left their mark. The young artist had to bring his many impressions under discipline—and decide what kind of art he believed in. That conviction would shape a career of classical subjects and elaborate compositions, even as the deeper purpose of his work could be missed by its viewers. What formed the creed Leighton held to when fashions changed around him?

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