International studio (27.1905/1906(1906))

IV. Lee Hankey

both the picturesqueness and the pathos of the
peasant’s struggle for existence, and he sees in the
simplicity and unaffected naturalism of the workers
in the fields a degree of poetic Suggestion which is
discoverable nowhere eise. He is essentially a
painter of Contemporary life, but he has not the
temperament to be satisfied with the artificialities
of society. There is none of the poetry which he
desires to make the keynote of his art to be found
in the ways of people who have fallen under the
influence of Convention and who regulate all their
doings and all their emotions by a formal code of
manners. The rural life gives him a truer inspira-
tion because it is nearer to Nature and takes from
her its sentiment and its meaning.
To realise to the utmost its picturesqueness he
has to seek his subjects abroad. The British
peasants have lost the character which made them
formerly worthy of the artist’s attention ; they have
got out of relation to nature,
their life has become con-
ventionalised, and their
costume has degenerated
into ugliness. They dress
in the cast-off clothes of
their social superiors, in
things inappropriate to
their employment and out
of keeping with their
surroundings, so that they
never seem to be properly
in the picture. But in
France these disadvantages
do not exist, the rural dis-
tricts are still peopled with
paintable figures, and no jar-
ring inconsistencies offend
the seeker after material
worthy of pictorial record.
There is less squalor there,
andconsequentlythepainter
is less tempted to over-idea-
lise or conventionalise his
subjects in an effort to im-
part to them what he con-
ceives to be a proper measure
of charm and poetic signi-
ficance. He can be more
naturalistic and at the same
time give freer rein to his
imaginative faculties.
It is probable, too, that
the atmospheric effects and
the characteristic qualities
294

of colour which mark the difference between
France and England as painting grounds have
helped Mr. Lee Hankey to develop certain de-
corative subtleties in his work. He evidently
attaches great importance to suavity of de-
sign and to the careful adjusting of his colour
schemes ; to that judicious balancing of details of
mechanism which has so much to do with the
quality of the completed picture. Although be
conceals cleverly the scientific exactness of his
technical method, and preserves in everything he
does an agreeable air of spontaneity, he really de-
votes a special amount of care to the planning out
of his paintings, and leaves to chance none of the
essential preliminaries. He is a precise and
thoughtful craftsman, and undoubtedly the
persuasiveness of his work is to no small degree
due to the thoroughness of his preparation. To
know what he wants to express, and to know also