September

September, painted on panel by Edmund Blair Leighton in 1915 and now held at the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle, was produced during the First World War — a context that inflects even a seasonally titled genre scene with potential undertones of passing time and loss. Leighton, born in 1852, was in his early sixties when he painted this work and continued exhibiting at the Royal Academy into the war years, though the cultural mood had shifted dramatically from the nostalgic Victorian comfort of his earlier career. The Laing Art Gallery, founded in 1904, had by this period become one of the principal regional art institutions in northern England, and its collecting of contemporary British figurative work was well established. Leighton's choice of panel rather than canvas is notable, as panel supports were associated with an earlier, more craft-oriented tradition — a choice perhaps reflecting his increasing interest in the Flemish and early Netherlandish technique that influenced many Victorian painters through the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites. Seasonal titles like September were common in Victorian and Edwardian genre painting as a way of evoking the passage of time and the elegiac qualities associated with the turning of the year.

Panel support allows for fine detail and a smoother surface than canvas. Leighton's brushwork can achieve greater precision on this ground, and the seasonal subject likely employs warm autumnal toning with amber, gold, and ochre hues.