DOI Heft:
No. 374 (May 1924)
DOI Artikel:Grimsditch, Herbert B.: Some recent etchings and aquatints by Laura Knight
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21399#0281
ETCHINGS AND AQUATINTS BY LAURA KNIGHT
"child's head." etching
BY LAURA KNIGHT, A.R.W.S.
of the ocean with much freshness and
gaiety of colour. In an exhibition at the
Leicester Galleries held in the summer of
1920, however, she took the Russian Ballet
as her subject, thus definitely registering
her interest in the stage, which had already
appeared in such works as Les Sylphides.
In her etchings and aquatints Mrs.
Knight has often returned to the stage as a
subject, and has indulged a love of action
by seizing on the opportunity of recording
vigorous motion provided by this life.
Landscape and architectural motives have
been, and are still, much favoured by
etchers, but it is in the presentation of the
figure, whether singly or in crowds, that
this artist’s etchings deal for the most part.
Her skill in recording movement may
be gauged from such works as Spanish
Dancers and The Chorus, here reproduced,
as may also her happy contrasting of warm
blacks and high lights. This second
quality is again apparent in At the Foot-
lights, wherein the gradations of light from
the brilliance at the lower part of the left-
hand figure to the deep shadows at the top
are most ably and truly managed. The
theme of Spanish dancers has previously
made its appeal to Mrs. Knight’s imagina-
tion, as will be remembered by those
262
who saw her oil-painting at the Goupil
Gallery last summer (reproduced in The
Studio for August, 1923). In The Merry-
go-Round, we see the artist captured by
the attraction of the travelling fair from
the aesthetic point of view. To merely
pompous persons, afraid of being “ low,”
such attractions are denied, but to a really
human artist, alive to even seemingly
unlikely aspects of experience, they are
valuable assets. The rigorous exclusion of
non-essentials is here seen in the absence of
any attempt at literal detail, which would
have weakened the impression of a blaze of
light, against which trees and figures stand
out black by contrast. 000
The girl's head which we reproduce is an
interesting study of attention and naivete
as well as an example of delicate line-work.
It exhibits considerable power of charac-
terisation, a quality well exemplified by
another etching which limits of space have
excluded: A Box at the Opera, Paris.
Even this small selection should corro-
borate the verdict already given by the
discriminating that we have in Mrs. Knight
an etcher of no ordinary ability. 0 0
Herbert B. Grimsditch.
AT THE FOOTLIGHTS "
AQUATINT BY LAURA
KNIGHT, A.R.W.S.
"child's head." etching
BY LAURA KNIGHT, A.R.W.S.
of the ocean with much freshness and
gaiety of colour. In an exhibition at the
Leicester Galleries held in the summer of
1920, however, she took the Russian Ballet
as her subject, thus definitely registering
her interest in the stage, which had already
appeared in such works as Les Sylphides.
In her etchings and aquatints Mrs.
Knight has often returned to the stage as a
subject, and has indulged a love of action
by seizing on the opportunity of recording
vigorous motion provided by this life.
Landscape and architectural motives have
been, and are still, much favoured by
etchers, but it is in the presentation of the
figure, whether singly or in crowds, that
this artist’s etchings deal for the most part.
Her skill in recording movement may
be gauged from such works as Spanish
Dancers and The Chorus, here reproduced,
as may also her happy contrasting of warm
blacks and high lights. This second
quality is again apparent in At the Foot-
lights, wherein the gradations of light from
the brilliance at the lower part of the left-
hand figure to the deep shadows at the top
are most ably and truly managed. The
theme of Spanish dancers has previously
made its appeal to Mrs. Knight’s imagina-
tion, as will be remembered by those
262
who saw her oil-painting at the Goupil
Gallery last summer (reproduced in The
Studio for August, 1923). In The Merry-
go-Round, we see the artist captured by
the attraction of the travelling fair from
the aesthetic point of view. To merely
pompous persons, afraid of being “ low,”
such attractions are denied, but to a really
human artist, alive to even seemingly
unlikely aspects of experience, they are
valuable assets. The rigorous exclusion of
non-essentials is here seen in the absence of
any attempt at literal detail, which would
have weakened the impression of a blaze of
light, against which trees and figures stand
out black by contrast. 000
The girl's head which we reproduce is an
interesting study of attention and naivete
as well as an example of delicate line-work.
It exhibits considerable power of charac-
terisation, a quality well exemplified by
another etching which limits of space have
excluded: A Box at the Opera, Paris.
Even this small selection should corro-
borate the verdict already given by the
discriminating that we have in Mrs. Knight
an etcher of no ordinary ability. 0 0
Herbert B. Grimsditch.
AT THE FOOTLIGHTS "
AQUATINT BY LAURA
KNIGHT, A.R.W.S.