DOI issue:
No. 237 (December 1912)
DOI article:Garstin, Norman: The art of Harold and Laura Knight
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21158#0217
Harold and Laura Knight
really a logical sequence to the influences already
affecting them. This hollow land, banked and
buttressed against the grey tumbling waters of the
North Sea, has always been a land of artists and,
strangely enough, considering its artificial nature, a
land of landscape painters. Great clouds sweep
up from the ocean and are mirrored in still canals
bordered by stately rows of trees. The cities, too,
built in old days by wealthy burghers and prosperous
merchants from Batavia and the East Indies,
duplicate themselves in bright, quivering reflections
on waterways populous with slow-moving barges,
radiant with the colour of a paint-loving people.
Here in the land of Israels, of the brothers Maris,
of Mauve, of countless names enshrined in the
history of art, the Knights set themselves to study
atmosphere and composition. The most obvious
effect of the Dutch influence was in causing them
to rely on a very reticent scheme of colour, discreet
greys, and rich mysterious shadows. A certain
lowness of tone both in colour and also in sentiment
marks this period. Harold Knight painted a large
picture called Grace which George Clausen, R.A.,
bought for the Cape in 1907 ; this was reproduced
in The Studio last year.
The next move was to Newlyn and another page
is turned. The Newlyn group has always had the
reputation of seeing through the grey fog that legend
attributes to the west of Cornwall. Whether this
is so or not, the effect upon the Knights has been
the exact opposite for, with their advent, there came
over their work an utter change in both their out-
look and method : they at once plunged into a riot
of brilliant sunshine, of opulent colour, and of sen-
suous gaiety. This, of course, was not really due to
their new environment, but rather to reaction—to a
healthy desire to experience other sensations, and
to test other methods. Their youth and strength
demanded a wider horizon than was to be found in
the poetic sadness of their low-toned realisations of
the grave, serious lives of the poor.
It is often an artist’s fate to be bound to a style
or even to a class of subject upon which the
public, believing it to be his speciality, insists.
Such insistence cramps the imagination, restricts
the outlook, and finally condemns him to a
really a logical sequence to the influences already
affecting them. This hollow land, banked and
buttressed against the grey tumbling waters of the
North Sea, has always been a land of artists and,
strangely enough, considering its artificial nature, a
land of landscape painters. Great clouds sweep
up from the ocean and are mirrored in still canals
bordered by stately rows of trees. The cities, too,
built in old days by wealthy burghers and prosperous
merchants from Batavia and the East Indies,
duplicate themselves in bright, quivering reflections
on waterways populous with slow-moving barges,
radiant with the colour of a paint-loving people.
Here in the land of Israels, of the brothers Maris,
of Mauve, of countless names enshrined in the
history of art, the Knights set themselves to study
atmosphere and composition. The most obvious
effect of the Dutch influence was in causing them
to rely on a very reticent scheme of colour, discreet
greys, and rich mysterious shadows. A certain
lowness of tone both in colour and also in sentiment
marks this period. Harold Knight painted a large
picture called Grace which George Clausen, R.A.,
bought for the Cape in 1907 ; this was reproduced
in The Studio last year.
The next move was to Newlyn and another page
is turned. The Newlyn group has always had the
reputation of seeing through the grey fog that legend
attributes to the west of Cornwall. Whether this
is so or not, the effect upon the Knights has been
the exact opposite for, with their advent, there came
over their work an utter change in both their out-
look and method : they at once plunged into a riot
of brilliant sunshine, of opulent colour, and of sen-
suous gaiety. This, of course, was not really due to
their new environment, but rather to reaction—to a
healthy desire to experience other sensations, and
to test other methods. Their youth and strength
demanded a wider horizon than was to be found in
the poetic sadness of their low-toned realisations of
the grave, serious lives of the poor.
It is often an artist’s fate to be bound to a style
or even to a class of subject upon which the
public, believing it to be his speciality, insists.
Such insistence cramps the imagination, restricts
the outlook, and finally condemns him to a