Lieder ohne Worte  1861

This was the first significant work Leighton painted after he returned to London from his studies on the Continent.The title refers to the ‘Songs without Words’ the girl is listening to: the sound of the gently trickling water and the singing of the blackbird behind her. Leighton knew many of his viewers would connect it with Mendelssohn's set of piano pieces of the same t...