(_From a portrait by J. McLure Hamilton._)]
If among all the considerable painters of the Nineties I distinguish Leighton and Watts, it is not because I think them possessed of the greatest talents, or even the most interesting personalities, but because they seem between them to represent rather specially what sharply marked off the art then passing away from what has taken its place. Both were very much of the nineteenth century in the largeness of their ideas and their sense of the importance of their mission. In many ways there could have been no two men, and no two craftsmen, more distinct. Both were picturesque and stately figures. Both had features cast in the noblest mould; the grand-ducal geniality of Leighton was not less impressive in its kind than the frozen though gentle austerity of Watts. In any circle each took quite naturally a commanding position—Leighton as a kind of king, Watts as a kind of priest. Each was at bottom shy, though both were immovable in their opinions in any company. But spiritually they were so utterly unlike that the one served as a foil to the other. When they were together—they were early friends, and the friendship lasted till the end of Leighton’s life—they might have served as models for an allegory after Watts’s own heart. Leighton was the epicurean, Watts the stoic. Leighton represented the world at its gracefullest, Watts the travail of the spirit. Of Leighton it might be said that he would have been a better painter could he have thought of something really worth painting. It may certainly be said of Watts that he was at his best when he was under no obligation to decide what was worth painting. His painfully meditated allegories might now be spared without too considerable a pang; his portraits, simply as documents of the time, could not. But, strongly as they differed in other ways, both men illustrated in a remarkable degree the curious seriousness and arrogance characteristic of the Victorians. Leighton conceived that the painter should be very much of the gentleman. Watts conceived that the painter should be very much of the preacher. Neither felt that he had any affinity to the workman. When I say seriousness, I do not mean that either was a prig; I only mean that each had a profound conviction that the painting of easel pictures is an immensely important thing, whereas the painter of to-day of anything like equal stature would be the first to say that, while he paints easel pictures for a living, they are about as important as chocolates, cigars, liqueurs, circulating library novels, and vintage wines—things, that is to say, to titillate individuals rich enough to afford them. When I say arrogance, again, I do not mean that they were vulgarly conceited: Watts revealed a beautiful humility, and Leighton was always bemoaning his inadequacy. But both were full of the notion that the artist is in the world to teach something, if it is only deportment, and should be respected as a teacher. Both would have rebelled against the suggestion that the artist is a workman, and that it is his sole business, as it is any workman’s, to make the best use of his material.