Rustic Music (Portrait of John Hanson Walker)

Walker was Leighton's only pupil and worked with him in the early 1860s. He became a professional artist and remained a friend of Leighton and an artistic protege throughout his life. This work was painted during the time when Leighton was searching for the ideal medium and form to convey his subtle and highly charged perception of pure beauty. It is clear that his early fascination with Florentine linearity, accentuated by his Nazarene training, has given way to a strongly Venetian response to colour and texture. Such works of proto-aestheticism place the young Leighton firmly in context as an Aesthetic painter.