Leighton and Landscape at Leighton House review: this enlightening exhibition reveals a whole new side to the eminent painter

On the Nile by Frederic Leighton, 1868 - (The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea)

When you think of Frederic Leighton, eminent Victorian, president of the Royal Academy, painter of that staple of the gift card market, Flaming June, it’s probably classical figure paintings that come to mind: beautiful young women in antique drapery, or just out of the drapery in the case of the Bath of Psyche, agreeably disposed for our old friend, the male gaze. But Leighton as a landscape painter? With next to no figures? Eh?

Well, that’s the revelation from this enlightening exhibition at his home, Leighton House in Kensington. From the mid-1850s when he was still in his 20s, Leighton would take off abroad to paint in the open straight from nature. Where other Victorian worthies might go off to Italy, Egypt and the Levant to visit famous sites or the fleshpots, Leighton went to paint rocks, hills, the play of light on water, Arab houses against an inky sky.