Part 8 (2/2)

In the preceding chapter a picture is drawn of the ”House Beautiful,” as it was in Lord Leighton's lifetime. It was then full to overflowing with all manner of treasures; but now all that were removable have been dispersed. Only the sh.e.l.l, the house itself, remains. Yet denuded as it is, that is still well worth looking at. The architectural features to which Mr. Rhys, dazzled by other things, hardly did justice, are now all the more apparent.

One of the rarest of all accomplishments, at any rate in England, is a cultivated taste in architecture; but it so happened that amongst his many acquirements Lord Leighton possessed it in a remarkable degree. In fact he received, although a painter by profession, the gold medal of the Royal Inst.i.tute of British Architects in virtue of the intimate knowledge of architecture he had displayed in some of his backgrounds--for instance, those of the frescoes at South Kensington. It is a great honour, and one by no means lightly bestowed. At any rate, when there was a question of building himself a house, though he might not have been able to build it himself, he was thoroughly qualified to choose an architect. His choice fell upon Professor Aitchison, now R.A., and he probably hit upon the only man of his generation able to put his feeling into bricks and mortar, viz., the feeling for a beauty sedate, delicate, and dignified.

We must remember the condition of things architectural in the sixties to do justice to the independence of employer and architect. It was a time when the Albert Memorial was possible, and when men tried to guide their steps by the light of ”The Seven Lamps of Architecture.” A sentimental fancy for Gothic based on irrational grounds was all but universal, and it needed courage to avow a preference for the cla.s.sical. The compromise in favour of quaintness and capricious prettiness which began under the name of the ”Queen Anne style,” and has contributed so many picturesque and pleasing buildings to our modern London, had not yet budded. Nor would it ever at any time of his life have thoroughly responded to Leighton's taste. So long as he could detect a defect he was dissatisfied, and extreme nicety is not what the Dutch style pretends to. It depends upon a picturesque combination of forms of no great refinement in themselves, but which give a varied skyline and a pretty play of light and shade. It amuses at the first glance, and as it rarely demands a second, it is well suited to turbid atmospheres, which blur outlines, and a chilly climate in which people cannot loiter out of doors. Moreover, the old-world memories it evokes, although in a minor degree than was the case with the Gothic, contribute to its facile popularity. But the cla.s.sical taste is a love for form and delicate beauty of line _as such_, quite irrespective of any a.s.sociations which may accompany them, or lamps, be they seven or seventy times seven. And to build his house in this style was the natural thing for a sculptor and fastidious seeker after the ideal in form. He found the man he wanted in Professor Aitchison.

We must go over the outside and inside of the house, but rapidly; for to do more than just indicate the points worth attention would be waste of effort. To convey an idea of the feelings produced by architecture is perhaps possible, but it is perfectly vain to hope to picture it or reproduce in words the actual beauties of proportion or of colour. Those who wish to verify them must see for themselves and examine the building carefully.

The aspect of the house as seen from the street is, it must be admitted, hardly symmetrical; but it is evident also that the first design has been much altered and added to. At one end the Arab Hall, with its dome and ”bearded” battlements, is an obvious afterthought, in great contrast with the serious simplicity of the rest. And at the other end the gla.s.s studio, which was added later still, is also clearly an excrescence. The centre part was the original house, and the studio was the chief feature of it, and very much as it is now. It is, of course, on the north side, and the street, the south side, is occupied by small rooms which, with their repeated small openings, offer no great scope for designing.

Still, the whole has that look of dignity which always accompanies high finish; and the entrance, far from being commonplace, because it has nothing quaint or surprising about it, has a certain ample serenity which it is rare to find. The mouldings of stonework and woodwork, few and simple as they are, are not taken out of a pattern-book, as is usually the case, but are specially designed each for its own position.

All the refinement of a building consists in its mouldings, and no one has designed mouldings better than Professor Aitchison. A vast improvement has been made in this respect in the last twenty years or so, and it is largely due to his influence. At any rate he was one of the first and he remains the best of modern designers of mouldings.

There are some fine examples of his work in the house.

On the north the house looks into a fair-sized garden, skilfully planted, so that it looks much larger than it is. In the mind of the writer this aspect is intimately bound up with the recollection of delightful Sunday mornings in summer, when he sat chatting on random subjects with the President, who, in slippers, a so-called ”land and water hat,” and a smock frock, leant back in a garden-chair and talked as no one else could. The quiet, the sun overhead, the gra.s.s under our feet, the green trees around us, and the house visible between them, form an ineffaceable picture of aesthetic contentment it is a delight to recall. It recurred every Sunday whenever the weather was fine and warm.

Then it was that there was leisure to appreciate the admirable symmetry of the architecture; for in England it is so rare to sit out of doors where one may look at architecture that even if architects were to design exteriors with all the subtlety of a Brunelleschi or a Bramante, they would seldom get anyone to notice their work.

The studio occupies the whole of the upper story, and the architect had a good opportunity, as there was no need to cut it up as is the case when several rooms have to be provided for, by numerous uniform lights.

Here, in the centre, is one great light between wide s.p.a.ces of wall judiciously divided by string courses, and in the upper part on either side of the great window is a row of three small windows. At the east end is a small door leading into a pretty little Venetian balcony with stone parapet. The whole makes a very beautiful building, and the details and proportions are all worth examining.

This central part was what one saw through the trees as one sat in the garden. Less visible were the gla.s.s studio on its iron columns, an excellent piece of work, considering its few possibilities, and the Arab Hall at the other end. Of course the latter looks a little incongruous.

It is a professed reproduction of Arab architecture, but carried out, like the rest of the house, with unstinted expense, care, and finish.

We will now go inside by the front door. The cornice of the ceiling of the vestibule first entered is singularly fine. Like every other good artist Professor Aitchison improved as he went on, and this is one of his latest designs in mouldings. When the entrance was altered some years before the President's death, an opportunity occurred for putting in a new ceiling.

Pa.s.sing on into the hall one comes upon a very picturesque arrangement of staircase. It is lit from above by a broad skylight. The stairs begin to rise against the wall of the dining-room which is recessed; while on the first floor the wall of the studio is projected and carried on columns, beyond which the stairs rise. So that figures coming through the hall in the light, begin mounting the stairs in the shadow, and re-emerge into the light, as the stairs turn, with a very varied and striking effect. By the first short flight of steps, and between the two columns, is a seat made of a Persian chest or ca.s.sone, beautiful and unusual in shape, and richly inlaid. Lord Leighton bought it in Rhodes or Lindos, and was very proud of it. It could not be removed and sold with the rest of the treasures at Christie's as it was a ”fixture.” The floor of the hall is of marble mosaic, mostly black and white. Only one small piece by the dining-room door, a very agreeable design, is in pinkish marbles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HOUSE: THE ARAB HALL]

On the left, down a short pa.s.sage, is the Arab Hall. It is so unlike anything else in Europe that its reputation has withdrawn all attention from the rest of the house. It certainly is a most sumptuous piece of work. Elsewhere Leighton satisfied his love of chastened form; in this room and its approach he gave full scope to his delight in rich colours. The general scheme is a peac.o.c.k blue, known technically as Egyptian green, and gold, with plentiful black and white. Here and there tiny spots of red occur, but they are rare. The harmony begins in the staircase hall. The walls, except in the recessed part, where there are genuine oriental tiles, are lined to the level of the first floor with tiles of a fine blue, from the kilns of Mr. De Morgan, and the soffitt of the stairs is coloured buff, with gold spots. In the pa.s.sage the tone increases in richness. The ceiling is silver and the cornice gold, while the walls, except for a fine panel of oriental tiles over the drawing-room door, are lined with the same tiles as the staircase. Then between two grand columns of red Caserta marble, with gilt capitals modelled by Randolph Caldecott, we pa.s.s into the Arab Hall itself, and we come upon the full magnificence of the effect. It is made up of polished marbles of many colours, gilt and sculptured capitals, alabaster, s.h.i.+ning tiles, glistening mosaic of gold and colours, bra.s.s and copper in the hanging corona, and coloured gla.s.s in the little pierced windows, in fact, of every form of enrichment yet devised by Eastern or Western Art. From the floor, which is black and white, the tone rises through blue to lose itself in the gloom of a golden dome, spa.r.s.ely lit by jewel-like coloured lights.

In the centre a jet of water springs up, to fall back into a basin of black marble. The form of the basin which deepens towards the centre in successive steps, is an adaptation of the pattern of a well-known oriental fountain. All is equally black in this pool, and the border unfortunately is barely distinguishable from the water. After a dinner party at which Sir E. Burne-Jones, Mr. Whistler, Mr. Albert Moore, and many others were present, I recollect how, when we were smoking and drinking coffee in this hall, somebody, excitedly discoursing, stepped unaware right into the fountain. Two large j.a.panese gold tench, whose somnolent existence was now for the first time made interesting, dashed about looking for an exit, and there was a general noise of splas.h.i.+ng and laughter. The dark, apparently fathomless pool was rather a mistake.

Mishaps like that just mentioned occurred, I believe, more than once.

There had been at first a white marble basin, but it did not give satisfaction, because, being in several pieces, it leaked, whereas the black one is all cut out of one block, at great expense, of course. But the white had the advantage of lightness where light is none too plentiful. In our winter, when days are dark and cold, black pools, with marble columns and floors, tiled walls, and dim domes about them do not fall in with English notions of cosy woollen comfort. The season to do justice to this hall is when summer comes round. When the sun breaks through the lattice work of the musharabiyehs, and the light is thrown up on the storied tiles, and up the polished columns to the glinting mosaic, to die away in the golden cupola, the effect is indeed superb, and to sit on the divan, by the splash of the fountain, and look from the glories within to the green trees without, is to live not in London but in the veritable Arabian nights.

The hall is square. On one side is the entrance. In the centre of each of the other sides is a lofty arched recess. Those to the north and south are windows, shuttered with genuine musharabiyehs bought in Cairo and having deep cus.h.i.+oned divans. The recess to the west has only a small pierced window high up. It has a raised step, and in it used to stand certain bronze reproductions from Pompeii, with pots, vases, etc., now gone. Some of the tiles were bought in Damascus in 1873. The price paid was 200 for the complete tile surface of one room. What would they be worth now? Others, particularly the great inscription spoken of below, were bought later in Cairo, and the rest at odd times. Here and there are single tiles, but most of them are in sets forming fine panels. An interesting one, in the south-east corner, represents hawks clutching their prey, cheetahs and deer, a hunter, etc., and another has herons, fish, tortoises, deer, etc. Set into the woodwork in the western recess are four tiles with female figures. These are either Persian or come from the neighbourhood of Persia, for the Anatolian or Egyptian Mahommedan tolerated no representations of life. The rest repeat in pleasing variety the usual motives of oriental design, viz., vines, cypresses, pinks and vases, doorways (? the entrances of mosques), with hanging lamps, and conventional floral designs. Above the entrance runs the chief treasure, the grand series of tiles bearing the great inscription. It is about sixteen feet long. According to Mr. Harding Smith it may be translated thus:

”In the name of the merciful and long-suffering G.o.d. The Merciful hath taught the Koran. He hath created man and taught him speech. He hath set the sun and moon in a certain course. Both the trees and the gra.s.s are in subjection to him.”

It cannot be said that there is anything very new in that. There rarely is in such inscriptions. There are three others, but so far as they have been deciphered they appear to be incomplete, and in two cases, at any rate, to much the same effect as the big one. Just pious reminders. The real interest of them lies in the decorative effect of the imposing procession of letters across the wall, and the splendour of their colours. For beauty and condition this great inscription is said to be without a rival in any collection in Europe.

Let into the woodwork panelling in the west bay there are two small l.u.s.tred Persian tiles of the thirteenth century. They have been mutilated as to the faces of the figures by true believers. The rest belong to the sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries, a time when artistic production was stimulated by the commercial wealth brought by the trade of Venice and Genoa with the East through Anatolia, Damascus and Cairo.

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