‘I am just a hard-working woman who longs to pierce the mystery of form and colour.’
Laura Knight

I recently attended an excellent exhibition of the work of English artist Laura Knight. (‘Laura Knight: A Panoramic View’ is at the MK Gallery, Milton Keynes until 20 February 2022.)

'As in the fourteen lines of a sonnet, a few strokes of the pencil can hold immensity.’

Having grown up in modest circumstances, Knight became a much admired and much loved figure in the art establishment. She painted women at work and play; performers on stage and off; troops on duty, machinists on the job and Gypsies on the racecourse. Eschewing modernism, she employed a realistic style of simple lines and vivid colours, revelling in the effects of sunlight; the glow of the footlights; the shimmer of silk and satin.

'One of the greatest moments of Mother's life came when she found that I, a mere baby, was never so content as with pencil and paper; even before I could speak or walk, I drew. There was no question of my purpose in life.'

Laura Johnson was born in Long Eaton, Derbyshire in 1877. Her mother, a single parent of limited means, raised three children and taught part-time at the Nottingham School of Art. She enrolled her youngest daughter to study there when she was just 13.

‘I became aware of my latent power. Daring grew, I would work only in my own way.’

At art school Laura had to deal with rules that restricted her access to life models, and tutors who thought she should develop her ‘feminine side.’ But she also met fellow student Harold Knight. They became friends and married in 1903.

The couple stayed for a time in Staithes, a village on the Yorkshire coast. Knight painted fishing and farming folk going about their working day; women plucking, polishing, peeling and waiting.

‘Each day she will bid her husband goodbye, not knowing whether she will ever see him again.’

Next Laura and Harold moved to Cornwall, joining the Newlyn artists’ colony. Here Laura painted families enjoying a day on the beach; young women in fashionable bobs walking along the cliff edge, staring out to sea; nude bathers revelling in the summer sun.

‘How holy is the human body when bare of other than the sun.’

Knight seemed to enjoy capturing women at ease, in reflection, away from the constraints and drudge of daily life.

‘An ebullient vitality made me want to paint the whole world and say how glorious it was to be young and strong.’

Knight became intrigued by the tension between outward appearance and inner self. She befriended groups of Gypsies at Epsom and Ascot racecourses, creating portraits from her makeshift studio in the back of an antique Rolls-Royce. Though their clothes were brightly coloured and exotic, their expressions were serious and knowing.

‘The beauty and remoteness from the world outside gripped me.’

Knight took a particular interest in performers: ballet dancers, circus acts and thespians. She liked to catch them in rehearsal and backstage; before the show and behind the scenes; in stolen moments of rest and recuperation.

‘Who among the audience could imagine their matchless ballerina hanging on to a curtain in the wings, panting, almost too tired to stand, with a stream of sweat pouring down her neck?’

A ballerina ties her shoes, adjusts her hair and inspects herself in the mirror. A dancer applies her lipstick while her colleague regards us with weary disinterest. A red-costumed acrobat chats with a yellow-hatted bareback rider, as they await the signal for the show to begin. Three clowns in comical outfits are immersed in serious conversation, one cradling his cigar under a ‘No Smoking’ sign. An actor runs a tap in a crowded dressing room, lost in thought.

‘Tension was tremendous during those last moments before the curtain rose. Then all was private behind; in a second, that thin wall of protection of cloth has disappeared, disclosing a cavern containing what seemed the whole of the rest of the human race.’

Knight was clearly fascinated with the transformation that takes place when a performer steps into the spotlight; when she or he changes from quiet and withdrawn to outgoing and expressive. Here – away from view, before the curtain rises - we see the real person, the true self.

Corporal Elspeth Henderson and Sergeant Helen Turner

Perhaps we are all performers - on occasion and in our own way. We all dial up the energy, turn on the charm, smile and project. Even more so in the social media age. But it would be wrong to think of life and work as a performance. Knight reminds us that genuine reflection, true experiences and real relationships are formed off stage and out of view. We need to protect and preserve the quiet times, the private moments.

Knight was hugely popular in her day. In 1929 she was made a Dame, and in 1936 she became the first woman since 1769 elected to full membership of the Royal Academy. Her work as an official artist during the Second World War sealed her place in the hearts of the nation.

‘No praise be too high for their staunchness, be they in crowded districts, or in lonely places miles from home.'

Although figurative art fell out of fashion, Knight carried on working into her eighties. She died in 1970, aged 92.

‘There was beauty in very simple things if one had eyes to see it.’

Knight’s painting was not radical or revolutionary. But it consistently communicated a quiet dignity and understanding. She celebrated hard work and true talent, individuality and difference. She presented us with our better selves.

'Don't you know the skin that you're given was made to be lived in?
You've got a life,
You've got a life worth living.’
Joy Crookes, ‘Skin'

No. 347

I recently watched an excellent documentary exploring the golden age of circus in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. (The Golden Age of Circus, BBC4). Set to the music of Sigur Ros, the flickering vintage film was wistful, haunting, melancholy. Here we could consider what passed for popular entertainment before the transistor and the cathode ray tube, before broadcast and broadband.

An escapologist is masked, bound and buried; another is hung by his teeth from a chain. The daredevil leaps through fire, swallows swords. The human canon ball squeezes himself down the barrel of a gun.

The audience is agog, aghast, amused, amazed.

Bring on the jugglers, tumblers, hoofers. Let’s see exotic dancers shimmy, do the hula hula. On the high wire the acrobats balance precariously, spin gyroscopically. The knife thrower takes aim.

There’s a darkness on the edge of town, an ancient cruelty not far from the surface. Fear and laughter seem so adjacent.

Here are elephants bathing, walking in circles, rolling logs lugubriously. Here are polar bears sliding, kangaroos boxing, broncos bucking. Assorted animals wear clothes, walk on hind legs, jump through hoops. Then monkeys on horseback, bears on bikes, pandas at a tea party, chimps in a jazz band. Tigers are caged, lions are tamed, snakes are charmed. Attendants goad and taunt with whips and chairs.

The crowd looks on, bewitched, bothered and bewildered.

And now the saddest sight of all: when they send in the clowns. Big feet, big smiles, big pants. They hit, holler, twist and tumble. They crash cars, squirt water, lob bags of soot and flour. Don’t look now. There’s an egg on that seat…

And the off-duty clown takes a swig of his beer, looks through us and walks off, alone.

An air of tragedy hangs over the Big Top. But in circuses we also see some of the timeless themes of entertainment: we want to be amazed, amused, afraid; we want to observe seemingly ordinary people doing extraordinary things; we want to watch animals doing human things; we want to witness heroes cheating death; to see failures fail.

In his excellent book, The Anatomy of Humbug, Paul Feldwick reviews the numerous theories of how advertising works. He reminds us of the primal power of showmanship and, in this context, quotes the great impresario PT Barnum:

‘First attract the public by din and tinsel, by brilliant sky-rockets and Bengola lights, then give them as much as possible for their money.’

It’s a lesson not lost on advertisers. Consider PG Tips Chimps, Cadbury’s Gorilla, Honda Cog, Volvo Trucks, Red Bull Space Jump…

But so much modern commercial communication is, by contrast, subtle, nuanced, oblique. We sometimes forget the impact of entertainment in its raw form; we forget the thrill of spectacle and show, pageant and performance. The public loves breathtaking feats, spine tingling stunts, jaw-dropping acts of derring-do. It loves anthropomorphism.

Audio Only

So roll up, roll up for all the fun of the fair. What magic can we conjure in this brief precious moment together? What spell can we weave for you, right here, right now? Because as Tavares memorably observed:

‘It only takes a minute to fall in love.’

No. 94

Laura Knight: Before the Curtain Rises

Circus Maximus: Learning the Lessons of the Greatest Show on Earth