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EVEN IF HINKSON WERE ONLY a chronicler of Port of Spain's threatened colonial architecture, its lace-work baroque, balconies and mansards, its light-washed alleys and rococo mansions, we would be grateful to him, as we are to the almost parodic drawings of John Newel-Lewis, for many things that are postcards in their own time, for example the views of Guardi and Canalleto, rapidly become history, and the devastation of Port of Spain by its impatience to look modern, an impatience and envy which seem to be echoed by a few younger painters, threatens to make Hinkson as much of an anachronism as his subjects.
A painter is known for his devotion to light. This devotion need not be representational, but without it, no painting catches life. Light exists in paint itself, and by light one does not mean brightness, or even its dependence on shadow for contrast, but that innate, organic radiance, however muted, which can make the darkest corners of Manet, or a swirl of raw flesh in Francis Bacon, hum and glow. The penalty of achievement is the contempt of inferiors, so it is now time to honour Hinkson for what he has become with a mastery so prolific that his detractors mistake it for facility. There is only one way to praise art, and that is through technique. That is what other artists admire, not subjects, themes or novelty. Hinkson has reached a point of achievement so reassuring that it is now shrugged at as predictable, even repetitious. We must remember that there are always people who will ask a Cezanne to stop painting jugs and...