Harold’s War by Gwyn Klee
“I have lost the friendship of several people whose friendship I valued, and my
career as a portrait painter has been prejudiced by my attitude towards the war I
have been compelled to take.” What misfortune these words herald for Harold
Knight, his reply to the bench at the West Penwith Tribunal where he had been
summoned to appear as a conscientious objector.
Wrong place, wrong time: a rural comer of Britain, and, lemming-like, a countrywide
urge to push any young man towards the front, armed and ready to kill. It’s
not out of the question that had the Knights been living in St.John’s Wood, as
they were to be a couple of years later , at that point in his career Harold’s attitude
towards fighting could have been met with a little more enlightened treatment.
Recognised as an outstanding student and reported in the local Nottingham paper
in 1892 thus, ‘Harold Knight is strongly to the front, there being quite a number
of specimens ofhis already recognised ability in black and white drawings. ‘ The
following year he won the Queens’ Prize. Are these the only times when Harold
stood well clear of his wife’s shadow?
As they matured as people, husband and wife adopted their own styles . During
their early years in Staithes, each painted every day occurrencies; Harold, ‘ A Cup
of Tea’; Laura, ‘Mother and Child’ apparently still influenced by each other.
Both of these paintings were exhibited in London and subsequently bought. It
was not until their visits to Holland that styles and subjects began to diverge,
when more and more of what was laid on canvas began to be a reflection of their
personalities and both of them, before leaving for Cornwall, learning much about
themselves and the rigours of making a living from the sea; honing their skills ,
thanks to critical eyes, largely those of Charles Mackie.
“Both Harold and I felt grief at leaving Staithes, but he was right in saying we
should go, I might be there today but for his better judgement. ….. .I had found my
own way of seeing instead of copying others, particularly Harold.” From ‘Magic
of a Line ‘ L.Knight
So, to the light and shade of Cornwall where both painters became well
established both professionally and socially. Both continued to develop their own
approach and success grew as their expertise – Laura with a battery of highly
coloured work and a group of models, posed, clothed or nude, in dramatic stances
on cliff-edge or rocks, and Harold, sharing the time of the models, some of whom
were to become close friends, staying with the soft greys and delicate colours he
had admired in the work of the Dutch Schools and his subjects showing the
excellent draughtsmanship and skill in the art of rendering the effects of light and
shade, especially his treatment of daylight in his interiors. His painting ‘Dozmary
Pool’ seems almost an antithesis of Laura’s output-the scene tranquil, the nude
figure in a passive pose, a supplicant perhaps in an almost eerie landscape. This is
Ella Naper with whom he had fallen in love. Another portrait of Ella – ‘Ella
Reading’ although it shows her in repose, has an atmospheric impression of
regard which gives away the artist’s strong feelings for her. He, also, used the
coast as his backdrops, using the same favoured spots as those of his wife.
particularly in ‘The Pool’ . This shallow rock strewn cove was a favourite
location for both the Knights and Harold’s painting is of a nude Ella, looking
down into the water. There is no turbulence here, even the large granite boulders
are smooth and pale and rounded. This love for her, unconsummated and possibly
unrequited was not the darkest shadow of his life . When war came, and in spite of
Auckland Geddes, Director of National Service saying, ‘the imposition of
conscription …….. added little to the effective sum of our war efforts’ few people
heard. There was a general belief that thousands of ‘slackers’ were evading their
country’s call and in 1916 conscription became law. ‘Towards the end ofMay
1918 a flurry of letters passed between London and Cornwall in the attempt to
prevent Harold Knight’s call up.’ says Timothy Wilcox in his excellently detailed
article on the Knight’s, printed in The Burlington Magazine of May 2015; a
measured account of the negotiations and correspondence which led up to the
summoning of Harold before the Tribunal.
During the early years of the war both Laura and Harold worked tirelessly,
though Harold’s health was not good, and both had Comm is ions from the
Canadian military, Laura to paint soldiers in training at Witley Camp in Surrey
and Harold a portrait of Major T.W.Macdowell. Some years after this, Harold
was to paint another soldier, a portrait of Sgt.W.L.Rayfield V.C. Is it too fanciful
to read into this portrait the troubled doubt on the face of the subject, the placing
of the hands as if a rifle had just been removed? This commission was executed
after Harold’s ordeal in the fields, ‘hoeing’ says his wife, ‘for days on end
without seeing a living soul. He was again a sick man.’ His poor health took years
to mend but the bitterest abiding memory was the sickening chauvinism of the
members of the bench of the Tribunal. The exchanges were reported in the local
paper – there are copies extant- dated lih June 1918. What irony, that the
Armistice was a matter of weeks away. The term ‘meaningless sacrifice’ not
heard though surely thought of before Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen spoke
out later, was not part of Harold’s vocabulary. Instead, he stood in the dock,
listening to his veracity, his religion, his friends and his motives being vilified.
He volunteered to do any work concerned with the saving of life, or to offer his
services as an artist or to do agricultural work. His appeal was supported by
Alfred Sidgwick, a local dignitary and the Revd.N.B.Walke who wrote to say that
he had known Mr Knight for four years and knew that he held the strongest
objections to military service on religious and ethical grounds – Harold had
refused to take the ‘easy’ way out which would have been exclusion on health
grounds.
Mr. A.H.Laity, a member of the Tribunal said to Harold ‘You’re a great friend
of Mr(!) Walke’s aren’t you? ‘Yes, replied Harold.
A.H.L. You were at a pacifist meeting with him, H.K. Yes
A.H.L. I take it for granted that you are a pacifist as well. H.K. Well, naturally.
A.H.L. I look upon a pacifist as a pro-German. H.K. That is not so
A .H.L. Then if other men acted on your principle the Germans would be here and
we should be under the Kaiser.
H.K. That I cannot say. As I understand the teachings of Christ in the Sermon on
The Mount
A.H.L. A lot of people bring in Christ as a side issue ………………………. . ‘
And even worse perhaps than the trial afforded by this tone of questioning, the
shunning of both Harold and Laura by people they had thought friends and
colleagues as a result of this trlbunal was a blow which bruised deeply; it took
some years for the hurt to fade. Harold never wavered from his beliefs and if
evidence were needed his paintings are his witnesses. Look closely at his
painting of St.Ives, Possibly executed whilst he was undergoing his ‘punishment’
and in spite of his exhaustion, it is evidence of the steel in the man. It is rendered
with a luminescence which suggests a tranquil mind and a recognition that the
beauty of the landscape, and the atmosphere it generates can heal. Study his
portraits, the intense focus of portraying the self-containment of his models and
his ability to suggest, with a restrained palette, the cloistered life he, perhaps,
aimed for is, pe~haps, an indication of the personality. Whatever the level of
passion tied their marriage together, both Mr. And Mrs Knight indicated some of
their inner feelings, both made love through their paintings, Harold with his skill
of rendering the integral peace and contemplative stillness of the domestic scene
through treatment of the light with which these portraits are imbued, Laura,
obsessed by the nude form, caressing breasts and thighs with her brush. Neither
afraid to demonstrate their admiration of the human f onn in the guise they have
chosen.
And Harold, who possessed a mordant sense of humour, often referred to,
sometimes obliquely, by his wife, has the last laugh. On first meeting Alfred
Munnings they were both struck by his boisterous bullying manner – Laura
delighting in his ‘showing off, Harold considering him a ‘bloody noisy fool’.
Harold painted a delightful summer-time portrait of a garden in full summer
clothing, the ladies, similarly clothed\surrounding the central figure, Munnings,
who is dressed in – for him, rather foppish summer deshabille- reading from a
book of verse, and the whole scene lit by the gold light of a Cornish summer.
Alfred is smoking a languid cigarette, the picture is called ‘The Sonnet’ Those
who are aware of Harold’s initial reactions to this flamboyant character could
consider that Harold had deliberately painted out the air of machismo that
Munnings enjoyed flaunting and instead has given us a picture of a flaneur. Who
knows, maybe Munnings enjoyed this role; he had a penchant for acting just as
did Laura, who will have the last word.
‘I remember with deep gratitude the magic I had the privilege of being allowed to
experience with a man so profound of mind, and of integrity so true, as Harold
Knight. In naming my book The Magic of a Line I tell of life’s own line – a line
never broken between us.’
Alfred is smoking a languid cigarette, the picture is called ‘The Sonnet’ Those
who are aware of Harold’s initial reactions to this flamboyant character could
consider that Harold had deliberately painted out the air of machismo that
Munnings enjoyed flaunting and instead has given us a picture of a flaneur. Who
knows, maybe Munnings enjoyed this role; he had a penchant for acting just as
did Laura, who will have the last word.
‘I remember with deep gratitude the magic I had the privilege of being allowed to
experience with a man so profound of mind, and of integrity so true, as Harold
Knight. In naming my book The Magic of a Line I tell of life’s own line – a line
never broken between us.’
G.Klee 9.10.17