British painter Edmund Blair Leighton
Hello, today I will talk about the works of the famous British painter Edmund Blair Leighton, who created historical and romantic paintings and fairytale-like medieval compositions.
Born in London on September 21, 1852, Edmund received his early education from his father, Charles Blair Leighton, who was a painter. Then, in his teenage years, he managed to enter the Royal Academy School of England immediately after completing his secondary education.
Edmund's curiosity about history and medieval stories came to life in the works of art he created. He soon began to make a name for himself in his country by depicting touching medieval love stories.
He managed to reflect the historical subjects he dealt with in a romantic style on the canvas in a very subtle and flamboyant way. He visualized topics such as love, marriage, and courtship based on medieval love stories, poems, or songs.
In the painter's works, it is seen that especially medieval English knights and their armor, shields and armour, are handled in very fine detail. His passion for the Middle Ages also caused him to become a collector, and our painter bought as much knightly equipment as he could find and buy in England. He also used the valuable items he added to his collection to dress the knights he created.
One of the best examples of the artist's epic love scenes is his work called 'Shadow', which he painted in 1909. This work takes its subject from an Ancient Greek legend.
This romantic farewell scene of Debutades, a Corinthian woman, is impressive in every respect, but when you look at the work, you see that the medieval castle and costumes were preferred rather than Ancient Greece. The artist wanted to visualize a story set in ancient times as if it were a medieval story. In this story, Debutades and his girlfriend had to separate because of the war. Since the man had to go to war, they decided to spend one last night together. They entered a dark room, alone, and this room was illuminated by a lamp. At that moment, Debutades saw the shadow of the man he loved on the wall and wanted to paint the shadow. Because he wanted to hang his presence in the room on the wall like a ghost until his beloved returned to his arms. Of course, if he can return...
When we look at the work, we see that Edmund changed this scene according to his own style. Besides the fact that they do not resemble the figures living in Ancient Greece, they are not in a medieval castle or a night scene. They are not in a closed environment either. They are depicted outdoors, above the castle. We see Debutades trying to portray the shadow falling on the castle wall under the influence of daylight. The knight's facial expression is very striking and very impressive when he is immortalized by the woman. He looks worried but tries to appear determined and strong.
Although he poses proudly and stands upright as if his portrait is being painted by a master painter, when we look at his face, we can see and feel that he is sad and nervous because of his journey and separation.
The woman had just begun to carefully draw the outlines of the shadow. But he needs to hurry. Because we see a sailboat approaching the shore, waiting to take the man he loves across the seas. More precisely, even though we only see the mast of the ship, we understand that this is the ship that will take our soldier figure far away, and as we think that the time of separation is approaching, we feel even more sad for this couple...
Later in his career, he served as a full member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters. The artist, who was born in London, died here on September 1, 1922, at the age of 68. He left behind some of the most beautiful depictions of love in the history of art... Thank you for reading. Stay with art...
