Excerpt from The Life, Letters and Work of Frederic Leighton, Vol. 1 of 2 Ten years and more have passed since Leighton died, yet it is still difficult to get sufficiently far away, to take in the whole of his life and being in their just proportion to the world in which he lived. When we are in Rome, hemmed in by narrow streets, St. Peter's is invisible; once across that wonderful Cam pagna and mounting the slopes of Frascati, there, like a huge pearl gleaming in the light, rises the dome of the Mother Church. As distance gives the true relation between a lofty building and its suburbs, so time alone can decide the height Of the pedestal on which to place the great. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from The Life, Letters and Work of Frederic Leighton, Vol. 2 of 2 How many out of the multitude really, if we could test them, care one jot for the Elgin Marbles, for the Demeter of Knidos, for the vault of the Sistine Chapel -very few. Really great things never can be accepted by the commonplace. How Should they be? For to understand the highest in music, in architecture, sculpture, or painting, the Observer or listener must have a spark in his con stitution which is a portion of the flame that burned white heat in the soul of the conceiver. How can such an attitude Of Intimate sym pathy belong to the many? It never has, and probably never w111. Great men are rare, and those who are mentally or organically made to comprehend them are rare also. The great can afford to wait because they are immortal. In all one's dealings with Leighton what did one find a noble nature, restrained, Charitable, in earnest and if in many discussions as to the desirability of certain events, certain compromises, certain acts of conformity, one did not agree with Leighton, one knew au fond that the attitude was quite logical, not hastily arrived at, and the position taken up was to be strenuously held: and it was that power of consistency which made Leighton so trustworthy. He was fearless when his principles were touched, he was loyal to his associates in the Academy even if he did not see eye to eye with them, and he was loyal to his art and to his friends. If Leighton had chosen politics for his career he would probably have been Prime Minister, just as burne-jones might have been Archbishop of Canterbury had he continued his early and very remarkable theological studies. All really great men have endless possibilities. It is more or less chance which decides the direction of ability, which, once discovered, forcibly, dominantly present. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

A huddle of wooden sheds in a courtyard off the Boulevard Montmartre known as Cormon's atelier was where the handsome art student from Sydney, John Peter Russell, first met the haunted, intense newcomer from Holland, Vincent van Gogh. Both were foreigners in the competitive art world of Paris in the 1880s, and over the next two years both would discover a passion for colour painting. Now, for the first time, Ann Galbally traces the passage of this extraordinary and unlikely friendship. The two spent hours together in a Paris studio experimenting with the fast-moving changes in art practice. Both artists ultimately rejected the Impressionist's world of urban sophistication and left Paris to develop colour painting in isolation, Van Gogh at Arles in Provence, and Russell on Belle Ile off the coast of Brittany. With a supporting cast including Gauguin, Rodin, Monet and Matisse this is a journey through the struggles and failures, plots and intrigues of artistic life. A tale of love found and lost and ultimate tragedy, it makes for enthralling reading.

Includes Part 1A: Books and Part 1B: Pamphlets, Serials and Contributions to Periodicals