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Lord Frederick Leighton
(Dec. 3,1830 Scarborough - Jan. 25,1896 London) English Oil Painting Artist Biography.
Frederick Leighton was taken abroad at a very early age. In 1840 he learned drawing in Rome under Meli. The family moved to Dresden and Berlin, where he attended classes at the Academy. In 1843 he was sent to school in Frankfurt and in the winter of 1844 accompanied his family to Florence, where his future career as an artist was decided.
There he studied at the Accademia delle Belle Arti and attended anatomy classes but he soon returned to complete his general education at Frankfurt, receiving no further direct instruction in art for five years. In 1849 he studied for a few months in Paris, where he copied paintings of Titian and Correggio in the Louvre and then returned to Frankfurt, where he settled down to serious art. Though his artistic training was mainly German, he loved Italian art and Italy and the first oil painting by which he became known to the British public was Cimabue's Madonna carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence, which appeared at the Royal Academy in 1855. Leighton's oil painting, created a sensation and was purchased by Queen Victoria. Although, since his infancy, he had only visited England once, in 1851, when he came to see the Great Exhibition, he was not unknown in the cultured and artistic world of London. He now turned his attention to themes of classic legend, which at first he treated in a "Romantic spirit." His next oil painting, exhibited in 1856, was A Girl feeding Peacocks from which he rose rapidly to the head of his profession.
Lord Frederick Leighton was one of the most thorough draughtsman of his day. His sketches and studies for his oil paintings are numerous and very highly esteemed. They contain the essence of his conceptions and much of their spiritual beauty and subtlety of expression was often lost in the elaboration of the finished oil paintings. Not so easily to be classed, but among the most individual and beautiful of his oil paintings, are a few which the motive was purely aesthetic, the Music Lesson where a lovely little girl is seated on her young mother's lap learning to play the lute.
Leighton's life was throughout marked by distinction, artistic and social. He spoke also German, Italian and French. Yet no social attractions or successes diverted him from his devotion to his profession, the welfare of his fellow artists or of the Royal Academy. As president he was ready to give help and encouragement to artists young and old and his tenure in office was marked by some wise and liberal reforms. It was when he was in the full stride of his popularity and success and apparently in the full stride of his personal vigor that he was struck with angina pectoris. For a long time he struggled bravely with this cruel disease, never failing to do any of his official duties except during a brief period of rest abroad, which failed to produce the desired effect. A year before his death, he painted one of his most well known works of art, Flaming June. His funeral was at held at St Pauls Cathedral and Leighton’s home Leighton House, is now a museum.
Leighton was elected an Academician in 1868, as President in 1878, when he was knighted. He was created a baronet in 1886, and was raised to the Peerage in 1896, a few days before his death.
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Music Lesson
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A Girl feeding Peacocks
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Flaming June
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