DOI issue:
Nr. 108 (February, 1906)
DOI article:Baldry, Alfred Lys: The art of William Lee Hankey, R. I.
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26961#0396
IV. Lee Hankey
himself to a small and uninspiring dass of subjects.
He has on the contrary ample scope for the exer-
cise of all his imaginative and inventive powers, and
can put forth his füllest energies in an effort to
attain really commanding technical qualities. The
better his craftsmanship the more convincing will
be his advocacy of what he feels to be the right
type of artistic performance, and the finer and more
dignified will be the style which he evolves. For
out of the sentiment in which he works will come
the style by which his performance as a whole is
distinguished, that demonstration of his personality
which is or is not authoritative according to the
extent and the value of the feeling put by him into
his records of nature. If he does not appreciate
the significance of the motives which nature offers
him, he may, for want of depth of feeling, lapse
into trivial sentimentality ; but if he is responsive
to noble inspirations he will always be seeking for
nobler sentiment in his work and for more thorough
mastery over the practical details of his craft.
It is because there is in the pictures by Mr. W.
Lee Hankey an amount of true sentiment far
greater than is usual in the work of a modern
artist that he is entitled to a particular degree of
consideration. He is in many ways a remark-
able exponent of the principles which should be
professed by the painter of what may be called
sympathetic motives, and he has besides the
capacity to make his expositions acceptable to all
lovers of sound accomplishment. In everything
he does there is apparent an eminently
judicious appreciation of the value of unforced
and natural sentiment as the basis ot sane
and sincere art, and, as well, a shrewd under-
standing of the way in which his productions can
best be invested with an appropriate atmosphere.
In all the varieties of his practice he holds firmly
to an individual and evidently confident belief that
there are certain aspects of the life around him
which deserve the most careful study because they
teach lessons of real importance, and make a
legitimate appeal to the better feelings of thinking
men. His art is didactic because it is so plainly
affected by his desire to convey to others truths
which are to him vividly interesting. There is no
hint of a pose in its moral teaching, no theatrical
straining after effect in its story-telling; throughout
it is frankly and transparently honest as a profession
of a faith at which he has arrived by the exercise
of his own powers of observation.
The direction in which he has found the widest
scope for exercising these powers of observation has
been in study of rustic life. He feels very strongly
292
himself to a small and uninspiring dass of subjects.
He has on the contrary ample scope for the exer-
cise of all his imaginative and inventive powers, and
can put forth his füllest energies in an effort to
attain really commanding technical qualities. The
better his craftsmanship the more convincing will
be his advocacy of what he feels to be the right
type of artistic performance, and the finer and more
dignified will be the style which he evolves. For
out of the sentiment in which he works will come
the style by which his performance as a whole is
distinguished, that demonstration of his personality
which is or is not authoritative according to the
extent and the value of the feeling put by him into
his records of nature. If he does not appreciate
the significance of the motives which nature offers
him, he may, for want of depth of feeling, lapse
into trivial sentimentality ; but if he is responsive
to noble inspirations he will always be seeking for
nobler sentiment in his work and for more thorough
mastery over the practical details of his craft.
It is because there is in the pictures by Mr. W.
Lee Hankey an amount of true sentiment far
greater than is usual in the work of a modern
artist that he is entitled to a particular degree of
consideration. He is in many ways a remark-
able exponent of the principles which should be
professed by the painter of what may be called
sympathetic motives, and he has besides the
capacity to make his expositions acceptable to all
lovers of sound accomplishment. In everything
he does there is apparent an eminently
judicious appreciation of the value of unforced
and natural sentiment as the basis ot sane
and sincere art, and, as well, a shrewd under-
standing of the way in which his productions can
best be invested with an appropriate atmosphere.
In all the varieties of his practice he holds firmly
to an individual and evidently confident belief that
there are certain aspects of the life around him
which deserve the most careful study because they
teach lessons of real importance, and make a
legitimate appeal to the better feelings of thinking
men. His art is didactic because it is so plainly
affected by his desire to convey to others truths
which are to him vividly interesting. There is no
hint of a pose in its moral teaching, no theatrical
straining after effect in its story-telling; throughout
it is frankly and transparently honest as a profession
of a faith at which he has arrived by the exercise
of his own powers of observation.
The direction in which he has found the widest
scope for exercising these powers of observation has
been in study of rustic life. He feels very strongly
292