DOI Heft:
No. 237 (December 1912)
DOI Artikel:Garstin, Norman: The art of Harold and Laura Knight
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21158#0218
Harold and Laura Knight
mechanical repetition that is really fatal to progress.
The English are particularly sceptical of versatility;
it is often the fate of what is called a successful
artist—namely, one who sells his pictures—to have
to repeat a worn-out theme long after it has lost
for its creator all that emotion of invention which
really makes it a work of art.
Mr. and Mrs. Knight have wisely determined to
avoid this form of paralysis and the work here re-
produced shows an entire change not only in the
technical problems of colour and handling, but in
their very choice of motive; what one must call
the human side is somewhat neglected in favour
of subjects that give them an opportunity of express-
ing their pleasure in bright sunshine, in pleasant
rooms, in sun-dappled shade, peopled with graceful
women. How long this phase will last we cannot
prophesy, but the wisdom of extending one’s
experience and making excursions into all the
realms of painting can hardly be denied.
It might almost seem that in speaking as I have
of Harold and Laura Knight’s pictures, I am
regarding them as one thing, one artistic asset;
this is due to the following up of a train of thought
and is not really so ; for though the community of
their experience has of necessity brought about
much similarity, still each has a personality too
strong to be absorbed by the other, as even a
cursory study of their work will show.
The difficulties that beset young artists’ careers
are beginning to clear away for the Knights ;
fortune gives them of her benefits without the
grim disguise that veiled her earlier kindliness of
intention, and their pictures have been bought for
quite a number of galleries. Besides the pictures
of Harold Knight already named, Laura Knight’s
Flying a Kite was bought by Clausen for the Cape ;
Sir Hugh Lane bought her Boys for Johannesburg;
and The Green Feather has gone to the National
Gallery of Canada. Mrs. Knight is an associate
of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours,
and her drawings are always amongst the most
alive and stimulating works to be found in the
Pall Mall galleries. N. G.
mechanical repetition that is really fatal to progress.
The English are particularly sceptical of versatility;
it is often the fate of what is called a successful
artist—namely, one who sells his pictures—to have
to repeat a worn-out theme long after it has lost
for its creator all that emotion of invention which
really makes it a work of art.
Mr. and Mrs. Knight have wisely determined to
avoid this form of paralysis and the work here re-
produced shows an entire change not only in the
technical problems of colour and handling, but in
their very choice of motive; what one must call
the human side is somewhat neglected in favour
of subjects that give them an opportunity of express-
ing their pleasure in bright sunshine, in pleasant
rooms, in sun-dappled shade, peopled with graceful
women. How long this phase will last we cannot
prophesy, but the wisdom of extending one’s
experience and making excursions into all the
realms of painting can hardly be denied.
It might almost seem that in speaking as I have
of Harold and Laura Knight’s pictures, I am
regarding them as one thing, one artistic asset;
this is due to the following up of a train of thought
and is not really so ; for though the community of
their experience has of necessity brought about
much similarity, still each has a personality too
strong to be absorbed by the other, as even a
cursory study of their work will show.
The difficulties that beset young artists’ careers
are beginning to clear away for the Knights ;
fortune gives them of her benefits without the
grim disguise that veiled her earlier kindliness of
intention, and their pictures have been bought for
quite a number of galleries. Besides the pictures
of Harold Knight already named, Laura Knight’s
Flying a Kite was bought by Clausen for the Cape ;
Sir Hugh Lane bought her Boys for Johannesburg;
and The Green Feather has gone to the National
Gallery of Canada. Mrs. Knight is an associate
of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours,
and her drawings are always amongst the most
alive and stimulating works to be found in the
Pall Mall galleries. N. G.