Rockwell Kent's story reflects
artist in service of people

¥ Henry David Thoreau had not

confined ‘himself during his
jifetime to Walden Pond and the
New England area within a hun-
dred-mile radius of it, and if he
had been an artist with a brush
as well as a pen, and moreover,
if he had lived into the rim of
the 20th century with its lifting
horizons, he ‘might have written
a book like Rockwell Kent’s It’s
Me, O Lord (obtainable in Van-
couver at the People’s Coopera-
tive Bookstore, 337 West Pender
Street, price $10.95).

I say this as a confirmed ad-
mirer of Thoreau because I want
to dramatize what I think is the
essential . character of Rockwell
Kent the man, especially as he
emerges in this remarkable auto-
biography.

That character is. a Thoreau-
like quality of rebellion against
sham and injustice, of consecra-
tion to the ‘highest truth as he
sees iit, of proud independence,
of radical individualism, a pas-
sion for living despite all odds
tn the light of one’s own uncom-
nromising conscience.

I say Thoreau had this quality,
and so too did Emerson and
Whitman. Perhaps every great
man has had it.in one way or an-
other, and Rockwell Kent is one
cf the great men of our times.

Joseph Wood Kritch in his re-
view of the book in the New York
Times tags Kent as a bohemian,
which tag is as appropriate as if
it had been applied to old John
Brown. Was Emerson a bohem-
ian when, in his essay on Heroism,
he wrote:

“Heroism works in contradic-
tion to the voice of mankind,
and in contradiction, for a time,
to the voice of the great and
good. Heroism is an obedience to
a secret impulse of an individu-
al’s character. Now to no other
man can its wisdom appear as it
does to him, for every man must
be supposed to see a little fur-
ther on his own ‘proper path
than anyone else.”

For this was Kent’s guiding
principle when he embraced so-
cialism as he-learned it from old
Rufus Weeks as a bank clerk in
Tarrytown, N.Y. ~ :

It led him to persist in paint-
ing when a career in art brought
him some praise but precious lit-
tle money to support a wife and

. an ever-expanding family of chil-

dren.

It. carried him to Mohegan, his
fabulous island off the coast of
Maine, to- Newfoundland, to
Greenland, to Alaska, to Ireland,
to Tierra del Fuego.

It made him oppose the patent-
dy unjust First World War and
support with all his passion and
all his talents the Second World
War against Hitlerism.

It led him to align himself
with the Progressive party in
1948, to accept the presidency of
the International Workers Order,
to attend the World Peace Con+
gress in Paris, to defy Senator
McCarthy, knowing that identi-
fication with the left would whit-
tle down the income from his art
qwhich at. last had become sub-
stantial.

Of course, I have oversimplied
this “secret impulse” of Kent, for
the springs ‘of his motivations
cannot be encompassed in a ‘sin-
gle quotation from Emerson.

Theré was Tolstoi, as well as
fmerson, and Coleridge and
Wordsworth and ‘Darwin and
some of Marx. And there were
the lessons he learned from the
eontemplation of nature, and
from his comradeship with work-
ers with whom he labored and
toiled as a bank clerk, a builder
of houses and as a fisherman.

It is primarily as/an artist that
the world knows Kent, and I was
tempted to say that he is a great-
er man than artist until it occur-
red to me that such a phrase
would imply a deprecation of his
art which I in no way intend. It
is rather that he is one of those
versatile. humans who has ex-
pressed his greatness in many

fields and perhaps most power-
fully in his art. 5
Significantly, there is no con-

ROCKWELL KENT

tradiction in Kent the artist and
Kent the man, perhaps because
at the very brink of his career
he formulated a philosophy of
art attuned to his own dynamic
integration with the life about
nim.

Taking as his point of depart-
ure Tolstoi’s definition of the
problem ‘of art as “the realiza-
tion of the ‘brotherly union of
mankind,” Kent commented:

“With art, in my now fuller
understanding of it, integrated
with the fabric of man’s exist-
ence as a social being, I con-
tinue with my mentor, Tolstoi,
to find in two volumes of his col-
lected writings on social, moral
and religious themes the same
confirmation and implification

of my half realized beliefs that
What Is Art had brought me. To
his impassioned exhortation that
man live in peace and brother-
hood, to his literal acceptance of

TUTS opening foined cbt

the moral teachings of Jesus,

and to his recognition of the

laboring masses as the norm of
human kind, I spoke a deeply
heartfelt Amen.”

This consciousness has perme-
ated his oils, his easel paintings,
in the sense of grandeur they all
have, and in the figures of labor-
ing men and women where they
are overtly a part, as in Toilers
of the Sea and many of the Mo-
hegan series. But to me it is es-
pecially and inescapably present
in the illustrations he did for
Moby Dick.

o Bes 5eg

Kent recognized a most- basic
fact in our times — that the de-
inocratic artist who is concern-
ed with bringing his art to the
people functions most effectively
as an illustrator of books, a paint-
er of murals displayed ‘before the
public, a creator of posters, a de-
signer of fabrics or china or other
materials in daily use in the lives
of the people.

Personally, I respond immedi-
ately to the precision, the expres-

sive line and the clean-cut quality ~

of Kent’s black and white draw-
ings. No person alive, I believe,
can draw a boat, whether it is a
coaster, an ocean liner, or a fish-
erman’s dory, as Kent can, and
for the simple reason that he has
huilt enough of them — dories, at’
jeast — to know them intimately.

Kent is an accomplished writer,
telling history in a relaxed and
agreeable mood, telling it hhonest-
ly to include love affairs, pranks,
quarrels, rewards and disappoint-
ments.

For the student of art history
there are the unforgettable port-
raits of Henri and Chase and
Davis. For those interested in the
early days of the socialist and
IWW movements there are also
useful facts and memorable
portraits.

And there is for every one the
conclusion that Kent, who never
pecame a Communist, stands to-
day for the preservation of the
rights of all, including Commun-
ists, to follow the promptings of
their conscience and to speak
their minds, even»as Rockwell
Kent ‘has done all his life.

ROB F. HALL

For the second time in the 16 years of its existence the Theatre

Under the Stars was rained out for its opening performance last week. ©
Cancellation of the opening night of Anything Goes broke a run of

successful openers going back to 1952 when The Gondoliers was
washed out. Even the dress rehearsals of Anything Goes was staged
in the rain, as shown by this picture of Beth Lockhart, choreographer,
and Jimmy Johnson, art director, huddled under a newspaper.

Robeson to sing again

Paul Robeson’s voice will once again be heard

border to hear him, as in past years. The concert is being

in ong?

n
_symbolic of international brotherhood at the fourth anna
cert in Peace Arch Park on Sunday, July 24. Thousands pine e

dian and United States citizens are expected to throng to

sponsor

ed by International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers:

A trend Hollywood
can afford to follow ©

WHIMSICAL editorial in the
“ St. Louis Post Dispatch in
praise of Marty, a fine movie
about how a plain-looking ‘boy
meets a plain-looking girl, cau-
tions against a trend of Marty
type films,

“Hollywood ‘thas grown to
where-it is by making people
beautifuler and beautifuler. It
has also grown to where it is
by. playing out the suit when
ever there seems to be a trend.
(CF. Lassie, Son of Lassie,
Grandson of Lassie, Great-
Grandson of Lassie, Tarzan, etc.
etc.) If plain looking people are
now boxoffice dynamite, there
must ‘be movie moguls who at
this +very. moment are licking
their chops over the possibili-
ties of doing a Marty’s Son.
about a plainer-looking and

. therefore more popular and pro-

fitable fellow. We can only hope
not.”

The St. Louis paper thas good
reason to be concerned. One of
Hollywood’s less admirable traits
is making pallid copies of what
has gone before.

T recall the story told about
Alfred Hitchcock, the movie di-
rector, who admitted to a top ex-
ecutive that he didn’t see many
movies. ‘Then where do you get
your ideas?” the executive asked
in all seriousness.

% og sos

Hollywood movies through the
years have become synonymous
with Cliche and Pat Plot. From
such misconceptions about movie-
making flow such ‘original’ ‘boy
meets girl movie love scenes- as
this:

Scene: A giant waterfall at
night under a full moon. Lots of
grass in the foreground. |

Beautiful Girl in tight sweater
takes deep breath—looks around

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JULY 8, 1955 —

: ure
at the other miracles of ot

and exclaims: i ”

“Oh Joshua isn’t it beaut nif
(not plain looking but ™
cently handsome).

ef
Joshua takes a look at
heaving sweater and 4
significantly: “Sure is!” :
I venture to say this P4 ory
iar stereotype is used | yea
studio at least’ 100 times ‘| dix’
along with such origiN® —
logue as: “plat
“Listen, darling, they’T® ’
ing our song .. .” ag ol
“Moss roses, oh darlin®
remembered .. .” hose
“White ‘orchids with ‘ust #
same yellow throats wit
touch of burnt amber, ° te
such a darling to remembe!
And here’s some more: jie
“Why you’ poor mixed up ”
thing—you’re trembling «,, pb
“T wanted: everythins
beautiful for us...”
“Tt Jove you because
MOU eis
“With you, I’ve know
happiness, Paula. - - se
“Then this is—goodby® | ol
“Well, if that’s the ¥
feel about it.” b four
These lines-which can PE _ pve
in almost any Hollywoo".,, al”
script you. pick indicate | mov!
palling similarity of ™?
plots...

you

al
nt

”

eRe

po
SO! If Marty, which is x1 a
usual love story with ne f rel
and few cliches, opens UP ©,
of films about ordinary vis
we hope, with the St. ? pf
Dispatch, that it will be tiot
away from slavish imila aff
what’s ‘been done, ~
serious grappling Wl
sand and one, ‘day to 4aY ai
about real people.

paviD PLA
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