DOI issue:
Nr. 182 (May 1908)
DOI article:Baldry, Alfred Lys: John Buxton Knight: an appreciation
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20777#0307
John Buxton Knight
the results of his constant observation. In this
series there is to be seen nothing but the progressive
working out of a fixed idea; from the beginning
to the end there is no variation of purpose and no
change in the artist’s attitude. What variations
there are in the character of his paintings came
simply from the widening of his experience as he
studied nature under different conditions and in
new directions, and from the increase in technical
facility which resulted from incessant practice. His
work with the lapse of years grew in breadth and
certainty, and acquired a more subtle significance ;
it concerned itself less with details and more with
large principles, but it fell under no outside
influences, and its personal quality varied not at all.
Yet it is impossible to accuse Buxton Knight of
having ever sunk into a mannerism. Prolific
painter as he was, with all his energy of application
and rapidity of production, he never acquired that
easy trick of repeating himself, and at no time did
he substitute a recipe for the direct inspiration of
Nature. Indeed, he guarded himself purposely
against the danger of any such lapse by constantly
shifting his sketching-ground and by accustoming
himself to all types of scenery. When he first left
the Academy schools he went, not back to Kent,
where he would have found himself among familiar
surroundings, but to Devonshire and Cornwall,
where not only the physical characteristics of the
country but even the atmospheric conditions were
unlike those that he had hitherto experienced ; and
for the rest of his life he wandered far and wide,
painting first in one place, then in another, but
always keeping an open mind receptive directly to
the impressions of the locality in which he had
temporarily settled.
Perhaps his position as a member of the British
school gains in interest from the fact that almost
the whole of his work was done within the British
Isles. He made a few excursions abroad, but the
number of paintings which resulted from these
excursions was too small to count much in the
record of his achievement. It is as a British
painter of British scenery that he really ranks, and
his work has a value, apart from its executive
merits, because it helps greatly to bring up to date
the tradition which was founded in this country a
century or more ago by masters who were as
independent as he was himself in studying and
recording the beauties of their native land. To
speak of him as the successor of Constable would
not be without justification, not because he con-
“THE HARWICH STEAMER
BY J. BUXTON KNIGHT
288
( The property oj William Iceton, Esq. )
the results of his constant observation. In this
series there is to be seen nothing but the progressive
working out of a fixed idea; from the beginning
to the end there is no variation of purpose and no
change in the artist’s attitude. What variations
there are in the character of his paintings came
simply from the widening of his experience as he
studied nature under different conditions and in
new directions, and from the increase in technical
facility which resulted from incessant practice. His
work with the lapse of years grew in breadth and
certainty, and acquired a more subtle significance ;
it concerned itself less with details and more with
large principles, but it fell under no outside
influences, and its personal quality varied not at all.
Yet it is impossible to accuse Buxton Knight of
having ever sunk into a mannerism. Prolific
painter as he was, with all his energy of application
and rapidity of production, he never acquired that
easy trick of repeating himself, and at no time did
he substitute a recipe for the direct inspiration of
Nature. Indeed, he guarded himself purposely
against the danger of any such lapse by constantly
shifting his sketching-ground and by accustoming
himself to all types of scenery. When he first left
the Academy schools he went, not back to Kent,
where he would have found himself among familiar
surroundings, but to Devonshire and Cornwall,
where not only the physical characteristics of the
country but even the atmospheric conditions were
unlike those that he had hitherto experienced ; and
for the rest of his life he wandered far and wide,
painting first in one place, then in another, but
always keeping an open mind receptive directly to
the impressions of the locality in which he had
temporarily settled.
Perhaps his position as a member of the British
school gains in interest from the fact that almost
the whole of his work was done within the British
Isles. He made a few excursions abroad, but the
number of paintings which resulted from these
excursions was too small to count much in the
record of his achievement. It is as a British
painter of British scenery that he really ranks, and
his work has a value, apart from its executive
merits, because it helps greatly to bring up to date
the tradition which was founded in this country a
century or more ago by masters who were as
independent as he was himself in studying and
recording the beauties of their native land. To
speak of him as the successor of Constable would
not be without justification, not because he con-
“THE HARWICH STEAMER
BY J. BUXTON KNIGHT
288
( The property oj William Iceton, Esq. )