Sir Frederic Lord Leighton

1830 - 1896 • English • Painter • Academic

"[I am} passionate for the true Hellenic art and am touched beyond everything by its noble simplicity." - Sir Frederic Lord Leighton

Leighton painted a theme that was widespread and popular during late Victorian times but that has generally been out of favor since: languorous, beautiful women, clothed in vaporous gowns, inhabiting an unreal world. These women seem to have emerged from the beauties of both PRERAPHAELITE and SYMBOLIST painters, yet they are unlike those dangerous FEMMES FATALES. Rather, they appear detached and seem mainly objects of desire, without character or substance. Leighton's Flaming June ( 1894-9 5) is an archetype: The woman is curled on a bench in innocent sleep, thus entirely vulnerable to the lascivious GAZE and sexual fantasies. To heat those fantasies, she is lightly covered in a transparent orange gown, and glistening behind her is the broad reflection of sunset on lightly rippled water. The source for Flaming June is the "Hellenic art" to which Leighton refers in the quotation above, specifically the sculpted marble Three Goddesses (c.438-432 BCE) from the east pediment of the PARTHENON, by then in London as part of the ELGIN MARBLES. Setting this Victorian type in historic context, it is noted that during Leighton's era, as women pressed to acquire the right to vote and some measure of equality, so efforts to suppress them were manifest and found expression in imagery such as the pictures of Leighton, ALMATADEMA, and others.