Letter: Not inaccurate but painting a myth

From Mr Julian Treuherz

Sir: As Keeper of the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, both of which have lent major paintings to the Lord Leighton exhibition, I was very disappointed by Andrew Graham- Dixon's review of the exhibition ("Victorian vices", 20 February). Your critic may not like Leighton's art, but surely it is his duty to explain to your readers something of what the artist was trying to achieve.

Mr Graham-Dixon criticises Leighton's Cimabue painting for inaccuracy. But Leighton was an artist of the ideal and his painting a myth, that of the Renaissance as a golden age in which society honoured art and artists. Would he condemn Raphael's frescoes for lack of realism, or Cezanne's for anatomical incorrectness? Such views simply miss the point.

Mr Graham-Dixon is entitled to his view that Leighton's art is characterised by conscientious dullness and minuteness of conception, but many people will find it hard to reconcile this judgement with such poetic and memorable images as Flaming June or Cymon and Iphigenaia.

In this post-modern and pluralist age, it is possible for one person to admire Cezanne, Leighton and Damien Hurst, even if they do not like every aspect of their work. A more broadminded approach would be welcome.

Yours sincerely,

Julian Treuherz

Keeper of Art Galleries

National Museum &

Galleries on Merseyside

Liverpool