Arts and Letters

I much prefer in these short tributes, addressed to an intimate circle of fellow artists and professional friends, to reduce to a minimum an evaluation of a fellow member's art and rather evoke in a series of personal memory sketches a clear and, in this case, a bold profile of what from personal qualities as well as innate desire forespeaks the superman.

As boon companion Rockwell Kent had undeniable charm, with a robust sense of humor, spiced now and again with a touch of sadism. Although he had a good mind and spoke clearly, action was the language in which he seemed best to express himself. I recall very little of what he ever said, and then it was usually part of an episode: as when he once, disguised as a policeman, burst into Hunt Diederich's apartment at 50½ Barrow Street and put everyone under arrest. It all ended in the best of spirits. And no skulls cracked.

There is no question that to Kent the mastery of a difficult technique was almost more important than what he wanted to say in it. If he had had a motto or creed which guided him through life it would have been: "Select the career which most intimidates you or in which you feel most incompetent—master it."

I remember his once saying to Clyde Weed, who was sent up by the Philadelphia Ledger to write a story on Kent's winter stay on the Island of Monhegan: "My present mastery of lithography is more important to me than the dozen best prints I ever rolled off the stone."

"It was a pleasant visit," Clyde recalled to me years later. "Good talk. Rockwell's flute playing, not so good. Plenty of drinks. The last night together we sat up late, talking and drinking. As a rule Rockwell took a dive in the nude from the pier before his usual breakfast of oatmeal and fresh milk. But this morning, it would seem, he would not come down to see us off. The small steamer blew its whistle and slowly edged its way from the dock toward the mainland. Then Rockwell appeared. He walked slowly down to the jetty. He stood for a moment gazing out over the water. He put a foot on a pile. With his chin capped in one hand, he rested his elbow on his knee.

"We waved to him: 'Good-bye Rockwell! Be seeing you!' He seemed not to notice us. Then he took his foot from the pile; stood up for a moment with his shoulders well back and made an almost perfect dive into the flat, icy sea."

It is difficult today to realize the ideological shades between the Stalinites, the Trotskyites, the Leninists, and the "fellow-travellers" who even as late as the fifties split the ranks of young American artists, such as today would be classed as left-wing liberals. I knew as did most of his acquaintances that Kent had travelled to Russia to receive heart treatment and that he was leaving his paintings to the Soviet Government. None of this particularly troubled me. A tout le monde son goût.

A year or two later I was asked to review Kent's autobiography, recently published. I did it apparently to his complete satisfaction. In one passage I had remarked that I could not understand how an artist whose roots and education were so deeply embedded in American soil and whose work—whether painting, writing, illustrations, or lecturing—had been so lavishly praised, could change his allegiance from a free country to a society whose background and conception of freedom were so alien from ours.

Rockwell, however, wrote me a most cordial letter, saying that nothing had ever been written about him or his work which showed such sympathy and understanding, not only for his art but also for the reflection of his philosophy in the meaning and purpose of life.

A year or two went by. The Russian armies overran Hungary. I wrote a postcard to Rockwell: "And what do you feel now about the Soviet creed of liberty?" He answered me by return mail: "Sorry, George, to see that you have joined the wolf-pack." I felt this rejoinder to be silly, bitter, and untrue. In more romantic and less realistic periods of history such an exchange might have justified a duel. Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton for less. But between that era and World War II romance was gone out of history. It was superseded by cynicism—or call it common sense.

Within a year of our rencontre, Rockwell and I were exchanging New Year greetings. This was also typical of that confused but generous period of our history.

For thousands of years, indeed since the dawn of history, the northern shore of the Mediterranean, the sun-kissed Côte d'Azur, has been the gathering place—during the months while the rest of Europe shivers—of the elite of Europe. And this included not only crowned or helmeted heads but also artists: painters, sculptors, composers, and men of letters. Accordingly during the winters of the 1920s and '30s, in a short half hour one might run into the Prince of Wales, Brancusi, Isadora Duncan, Lionello Venturi, Rockwell Kent, or his friend Waldo Peirce.

Now both Rockwell and Waldo had experienced adventures of their own: the one wintering on Monhegan Island, the other appearing at the Bal des Quatre Arts, stark naked and gilded, in the guise of Cupid. They both were professional entertainers and they both desperately needed an appreciative audience, each striving to outshine the other. If the interest in Rockwell's audience flagged when both were putting on an act he could always pull out his flute and work his way through something from Anna Magdalena Bach's Clavier Book. Waldo would counter by reading one of his ballads.

Waldo's ballads, devoted to the chastisement of his friends, dated from his college days. They were earthy, as sour as the best "Down East" humor and comparable with some of Mark Twain's best. Waldo's "Unser Kent" is a ballad of 26 verses, but since this tribute is devoted to Rockwell and not to Waldo I shall reduce the number to a mere nine.

Unser Kent.

Who strides so fast through winds and snows
with suburban face and mountainous clothes,
While the human race doth kneel and salute?
—'Tis Unser Kent and his magic flute!

He must ever go like a wandering Jew
To faces and places and skies that are new
And wherever he goes he must ever give vent
His verflüchtiger fluting temperament.

He came like a storm, he passed like a dream
Through the beautiful land of the Alpes Maritimes,
Where he wrought much magic with men and fleas
In pants that only came to his knees.

O my virgins, my violets, may I be nigh
If ever he starts Die Lorelei.
I will stuff your ears, I will hold you fast
But the Magic Flute will get you at last.

With the very first note your phantasy
Takes on a glory and seems to be.
Why, the French all swear when the Meister plays,
Die Wacht am Rhein is La Marseillaise.

With "Ein fester Burg ist unser Gott"
He undid a maiden's virginal knot,
While his encore, "Du bist wie eine Blume"
Left the lady still more roomy.

With "Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht and Wind"
He became a Vater and had a kind.
With one low note of "Heim sweet Heim"
He was a parent a second time.

He will never grow old or if this must be
To mitigate such a catastrophe,
On the mossy earth wherever he went
Something was left in the image of Kent.

A businesslike man was Unser Kent;
His legend's insured against accident.
Avoid imitation and substitute,
Call for his Trade Mark, Kent—and his flute.

Earlier in this tribute I said Rockwell had an excellent mind but that action was the language in which he seemed best to express himself. Both these qualities are here in evidence. His response to Waldo's ballad—surely with the author's approval—was that Rockwell had "Unser Kent" handsomely printed on handmade paper in a de luxe edition; as a frontispiece an original lithograph by himself of Waldo in the character of Jove surrounded by fluttering nymphets. That was his only comment. But it speaks louder than words could: of his business acumen, his passion for notoriety, and his success with the other sex.

I knew Rockwell quite intimately and was on friendly terms with him up to the time of his death. He never showed any need or admiration for the qualities we prize in women: motherly love, affection for little children, the need of a woman's understanding, or intellectual sympathy. To put it quite simply, to him the only difference between man and woman was their sex. I have said little of Kent's art. He was remarkably able, and had an influence on his generation. He expressed the qualities which he himself admired: courage, endurance, loneliness, the attempt to achieve the impossible. As a landscape painter Rockwell was as uncompromising as in his approach to people. He seemed unwilling to admit that the world has four seasons. The only season in which he saw beauty was the snowbound north, the negation of a living world, but without the rainbow freshness of spring, the glowing heat of summer, or autumn's warmth.

One cannot deny the power of this artist to prove that man can survive in a hostile and unfriendly world. Survive and then? The question is left hanging there, unanswered.