DOI Heft:
No. 136 (June, 1908)
DOI Artikel:Baldry, Alfred Lys: John Buxton Knight: an appreciation
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28254#0302
John Buxton Knight
when they have the right instincts and aspirations
they are too often led by circumstances into follow-
ing fashions which are popular, though they are
entirely conscious of the fallacies to which these
fashions lead.
But for this very reason the man who, having
naturally the power of correct vision, has striven
consistently to develop it and keep it free from
wrong influences, has indisputable claims to be
remembered, for he has worked in the spirit of the
great masters and he has counted his principles as
being worth many sacrifices. He has not given
way to the temptations of ephemeral popularity,
but has fought long and seriously against many
disappointments to make people understand the
purity of his motives. He has had to endure
misrepresentation, neglect, the indifference of his
more successful fellow-workers, he may have passed
his life in obscurity and poverty—for all these are
the rewards of conscientiousness and originality.
But when the sum of his achievement comes to be
added up he has given to the world something
permanent, something that will endure when the
trivialities put forth by many of his more favoured
contemporaries are, as they deserve to be, entirely
forgotten.
It is because his work has the qualities which
satisfy the most exigent demand for sincerity and
accurate observation that John Buxton Knight has
a right to be considered. Among modern artists
he stands out as one of the most soundly indepen-
dent of all our students of nature, and as one of
the most personal exponents of landscape subjects
whom we have had amongst us in recent times.
In the ample series of his paintings he laboured
consistently to express a conviction -which was
founded not upon the dogma of any school of
artistic belief, but upon his own experience,
obtained by long and intimate contact with nature.
He saw things in his own way, and what he saw he
interpreted by the light of his own intelligence,
robustly and confidently, and with a frank direct-
ness which was a reflection of an exceptionally
honest intention. To curry favour with the public
by weakening his conviction to suit some popular
fashion was a thing he never attempted; he had
ideals, and to abandon them for the sake of
expediency would have been repugnant to him.
At any rate, there was not in his career any
moment at which he diverged perceptibly from his
principles ; as he began so he continued, an earnest
and simple-minded student with too much faith in
nature’s infallibility to wish for any other guide.
For this no doubt he owed something to his
“WEST DRAY TON
( The property of William Iceton, Esq. )
BY J. BUXTON KNIGHT
when they have the right instincts and aspirations
they are too often led by circumstances into follow-
ing fashions which are popular, though they are
entirely conscious of the fallacies to which these
fashions lead.
But for this very reason the man who, having
naturally the power of correct vision, has striven
consistently to develop it and keep it free from
wrong influences, has indisputable claims to be
remembered, for he has worked in the spirit of the
great masters and he has counted his principles as
being worth many sacrifices. He has not given
way to the temptations of ephemeral popularity,
but has fought long and seriously against many
disappointments to make people understand the
purity of his motives. He has had to endure
misrepresentation, neglect, the indifference of his
more successful fellow-workers, he may have passed
his life in obscurity and poverty—for all these are
the rewards of conscientiousness and originality.
But when the sum of his achievement comes to be
added up he has given to the world something
permanent, something that will endure when the
trivialities put forth by many of his more favoured
contemporaries are, as they deserve to be, entirely
forgotten.
It is because his work has the qualities which
satisfy the most exigent demand for sincerity and
accurate observation that John Buxton Knight has
a right to be considered. Among modern artists
he stands out as one of the most soundly indepen-
dent of all our students of nature, and as one of
the most personal exponents of landscape subjects
whom we have had amongst us in recent times.
In the ample series of his paintings he laboured
consistently to express a conviction -which was
founded not upon the dogma of any school of
artistic belief, but upon his own experience,
obtained by long and intimate contact with nature.
He saw things in his own way, and what he saw he
interpreted by the light of his own intelligence,
robustly and confidently, and with a frank direct-
ness which was a reflection of an exceptionally
honest intention. To curry favour with the public
by weakening his conviction to suit some popular
fashion was a thing he never attempted; he had
ideals, and to abandon them for the sake of
expediency would have been repugnant to him.
At any rate, there was not in his career any
moment at which he diverged perceptibly from his
principles ; as he began so he continued, an earnest
and simple-minded student with too much faith in
nature’s infallibility to wish for any other guide.
For this no doubt he owed something to his
“WEST DRAY TON
( The property of William Iceton, Esq. )
BY J. BUXTON KNIGHT