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E (1855)] Among other people whom Leighton met in Rome were George Sand, Mrs. Kemble, George Mason the painter, of _Harvest Moon_ fame, Gibson the sculptor, and Lord Lyons. Like Robert Browning, let us add, he was readily responsive to the quickening of his contemporaries, and vigorously studied the present in order that he might the better paint the past, and put live souls into the archaic raiment of Cimabue and old Florence. He was working hard all this while, with a devotion and concentration that impressed other friends beside Thackeray, upon his picture of _Cimabue's Madonna_, which was exhibited in the Academy of 1855, and as the work of an unknown hand made a distinct sensation. It was discussed, angrily by some, delightedly by others. The criticism which Rossetti, Mr. Ruskin, and other critics bestowed upon it in the press or in private correspondence[1] will come more fitly into our later pages, when we turn to deal with contemporary opinions upon Leighton's work. Enough to say here that it won fame for the artist at a stroke. The Queen bought it for L600, having bespoken it, I believe, before it left his studio, and hung it eventually in Buckingham Palace. With this encouraging first great success, the probationary stage of our artist's history may be said to close. CHAPTER II YEAR BY YEAR--1855 TO 1864 The Academy of forty years ago was very different from that we know to-day. It was held in the left wing of the National Gallery, and had not nearly so much space at its disposal as it has in its present quarters at Burlington House. The exhibition of 1855 contained few pictures, compared with the multitudinous items of the present shows. Generally speaking, the exhibition was of a heavier, more Georgian aspect, in spite of certain Pre-Raphaelite experiments and other signs of the coming of a younger generation. Sir Charles Eastlake was President. Professor Hart was delivering lectures to its students, full of academic, respectable intelligence, if little more; lectures which those who are curious may find reported in full in the "Athenaeum" of that time. More interesting was the appearance of Mr. Ruskin as commentator on the pictures of the Academy in this year, the first in which he issued his characteristic "Academy Notes." His long, and, all things considered, remarkably appreciative criticism of the _Cimabue's Madonna_ we discuss elsewhere (p. 103). Of another picture of Italy by
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