Absolutely

In his 1955 memoir titled It’s Me, O Lord, Rockwell Kent wrote, “There is a deeply satisfying finality about land’s end. Gone is that everlasting urge the island traveler feels to journey on and on; there are not further peaks to beckon you; you have attained the absolute.” Born June 21, 1882, Kent remains in many ways the American equivalent of England’s William Blake—a bold visionary who expressed ideas of the absolute in words and pictures. Kent’s And Women Must Weep or Shipwreck, Coast of Ireland (above, from 1927-1928) captures this sense of the absolute power of nature while simultaneously depicting the place of humanity within it. Kent studied under both Robert Henri and Abbott Thayer, two of the most spiritually oriented artists in America at the turn of the twentieth century. Henri believed deeply in vitalism and Kent clearly shared that same faith in an electric force in the universe far greater than any individual being. Kent is best known for his amazing illustrations in black and white for such classic works as Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, which was only rising to status as the Great American Novel when Kent illustrated a 1930 edition. As much as I love Kent’s graphic work, I think he gets even more cosmic in color.

Nudism and the cult of the body reigned in Europe in the first few decades of the twentieth century, but I’m not sure if Kent took that as his source for works such as Recumbent Nudes with Ringed Sun (above, from 1914). It’s entirely possible that Kent simply arrived at this image by extending the Romantic and Transcendentalist philosophy to the human body itself, unashamedly nude before the nourishing sun. Heliotherapy, also known as sun or light therapy, may be the source of the ringed sun baking the bodies beneath. Regardless of whether Kent subscribed to those particular cures, he did believe that freedom of the mind and soul could cure anything. For Kent, the good fight was always the fight against oppression, which won him the honor of being a target of Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. An incurable traveler, Kent visited all kinds of peoples and studied their cultures closely, which allowed him to see clearly the bare truth that we’re all human beneath it all.

As fascinating as Kent’s sense of the beautiful side of the absolute is, his sense of the sublimely terrible side fascinates me even more. Kent’s House of Dread, Newfoundland (above, from 1915) shows a naked man leaning against a house built on a cliff’s edge as a crying woman leans out of a window above. The sense of dread created by the ambiguity of the situation reeks of the most dreadful works of Edvard Munch. A member of the golden age of American illustration, Kent knew the power of images to tell a story. Here, Kent tells the other side of the story of the absolute, the one fragile humanity doesn’t like hearing. Kent built a similar home on a rocky peak in Monhegan Island, Maine, that is now owned by Jamie Wyeth, grandson of another great American illustrator, N.C. Wyeth. Jamie’s style resembles that of his grandfather more than that of his father, Andrew Wyeth, so he understandably felt a kinship with Kent both artistically and spiritually. After several decades of obscurity thanks to the hostile political climate of the 1950s, Rockwell Kent has been reconnected with the body politic of art history and reminded it that it has a soul, too.

Public Display of Affection

On Saturday, January 24th, the Brandywine River Museum and the Wyeth family celebrated with the public the life and art of Andrew Wyeth. (The memorial card distributed to visitors with thanks from the Wyeth family appears above.) Free admission and the first ever showing of Christina's World in Wyeth’s Chadds Ford were only two of the drawing cards. The biggest draw, however, remained the chance to join together and remember a man of the community. It’s so rare today that an artist becomes so closely identified with a region that Wyeth may be the last major American artist who could garner such an outpouring of affection. It was truly awesome to see. Annie, Alex, and I drove down expecting a crowd, but nothing like the long line of cars waiting just to get into the packed parking lots of the museum. We met friends Michele and Dave at the museum and got in line to walk through the Andrew Wyeth galleries, which snaked down from the third floor to the second.

As we wound our way closer to the gallery, we watched people write in the many memorial books. “Profile of Andrew Wyeth,” an organ piece written by Andy’s sister Ann, rumbled over the loudspeakers, giving the procession a momentary funereal feel. The spirit of fun that was Andy Wyeth, however, eventually took over and people began to recall stories and search the crowds for famous faces from the paintings. The Brandywine River rolled past below, carrying sheets of melting ice past. The broad windows of the Brandywine River Museum gave a great opportunity to wonder at the land that inspired Andy his entire 91 years in this world. It was as if nature itself staged a snowfall and melt just to pay tribute, too.

Just before reaching the steps to the third floor, we could see into the space for the Unique Force exhibition of Carolyn Wyeth’s art. (The entrance appears above.) Sadly, once again, Carolyn seems doomed to be overshadowed by her younger brother. I didn’t have time to look for more than a few minutes through that exhibition, but that was enough to want to come back and give her more attention. The line then worked its way through the N.C. Wyeth galleries, reminding us of how Andy got his start in art as well as just how different a path he took from his father’s. It was fascinating to see the portrait of the 12-year-old Andy sitting in the corner of N.C.’s In a Dream I Met George Washington. (Go here and enlarge the image to see the young, blond Andy.) Later on, I saw a portrait by Andy’s older sister Henriette Wyeth Hurd of the 21-year-old Andy standing proudly beside one of the startlingly colorful watercolors with which he made his first splash in the art world in 1938. It occurred to me that the Brandywine River Museum could easily work with the Wyeth family to assemble a series of portraits of Andy that would span most of his nine decades of life. That would truly be something to see.

Right before entering the Andrew Wyeth galleries, we saw displays of the many medals and honorary degrees Wyeth received over the years (above). Andy would certainly have hated such a display, but it was just a glimpse of the long-standing impact he had on American art and culture reaching all the way back to the 1940s. Once inside the gallery, we, of course, looked at Christina’s World, but the many other familiar works called to us one by one, stirring up all the old stories to be repeated once more. But it was one unfamiliar work that drew the most attention—Wyeth’s final painting, titled presciently Goodbye. A large tempera, Goodbye shows a white house, most likely in Maine, reflected in water running alongside. A small boat slips quietly out of the picture frame on the left. The technique is, of course, amazing. The subject matter and title, however, simply knocked you off your feet. It was as if Andy said goodbye to each one of us personally, rewarding us for taking the time to look and understand when so many others had failed to, especially in these final years.

Just before we entered the Andrew Wyeth gallery, we spotted Jamie Wyeth (above) and his wife, Phyllis, enter the gallery through a special entrance. They stopped first to look at the display of medals and degrees, as if they had never seen them all in one place before either, before disappearing into the private offices of the museum. For a family as fiercely private as the Wyeths, Saturday’s special celebration must have been a difficult decision, but one I’m sure they do not regret. For all the critics who dismiss Andrew Wyeth’s art out of prejudice, ignorance, or a combination of the two, you cannot deny the power of the people to vote with their feet and elect Andy as one of the greatest painters America has ever produced. I thank the Wyeth family and the Brandywine River Museum for allowing those of us who could attend the chance to express our affection publicly and pay our heartfelt respects.

[Many thanks to Dave for sharing his photos of the medal display case and Jamie Wyeth that appear above.]

[BONUS CELEBRITY SIGHTING: While waiting in line, Annie and Alex walked over to a bench for a rest. Alex sat beside a young boy about his age. That young boy’s mother asked Alex for his name, to which Alex characteristically responded with his full name, including his middle name “Robert.” “That’s Luke’s middle name, too—Luke Robert Watson,” she responded. Annie talked with the other mother, not realizing, as Michele, Dave, and I did, that it was local TV news personality Cecily Tynan. When Annie and Alex rejoined us, we told Annie who she was speaking with, to her amusement. If you’re out there reading, Cecily, I hope you and Luke enjoyed the show, too.]

Literal Minded

When N.C. Wyeth took an assignment to illustrate a book, he read the book intently from cover to cover. Born October 22, 1882, Wyeth searched in his reading for those scenes that the author had only barely described, taking those moments as his opportunity to stamp his own vision on the work. Wyeth illustrated 112 books, including Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (cover image above, from 1911). Unlike most illustrators, Wyeth painted large oil paintings that publishing companies reproduced on a smaller scale for the books. It was if Wyeth couldn’t bring himself to miniaturize the works of his imagination, even knowing they’d eventually be mass distributed that way. Born and raised in New England, Wyeth reveled in the region’s literary tradition of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and others. Wyeth’s literature-formed visual imagination made him the foremost illustrator of great, imaginative (too often what we call “children’s”) books of his time.

Wyeth left the comforts of New England in 1902 to study under Howard Pyle, often deemed the father of American illustration for teaching a whole generation of great illustrators. Pyle loved the legends of King Arthur and inflamed Wyeth’s interest in that subject. In 1922, Wyeth illustrated The Boy’s King Arthur (an illustration from which, above). "I am Sir Launcelot du Lake, King Ban's son of Benwick, and knight of the Round Table," Launcelot says to the swordsman before him in the scene Wyeth chooses to show the warrior bloodied but not beaten. Wyeth filled his Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania studio with costumes and props to place on models while painting such scenes. Wyeth’s children often borrowed those costumes and props and played knights, cowboys, Indians, and other characters in the woods surrounding their home. Nobody played pretend in the Wyeth family like the sickly son, Andrew.

N.C. Wyeth’s greatest legacy in the history of art may be his children and grandchildren. Andrew has earned a place in the upper tier of American painters of the twentieth century. Jamie Wyeth, N.C.’s grandson, stands among the great painters of his time. Even Wyeth’s daughters find a place among the superior female painters of their era. Perhaps my favorite N.C. painting is his work In a Dream I Met General Washington (above, from 1930). N.C. paints himself painting a mural of George Washington leading his troops when the mural suddenly comes to life and addresses the artist. It’s a beautiful depiction of just how immediate and alive such scenes could be for N.C. Even more touching is how N.C. places his young, 13-year-old son Andrew in the corner of the painting, sketching the dream sequence playing out before him. In this painting we see the past playing out before N.C., the artist of the present, as Andrew, the artist of the future, picks up the torch passed on to him by his father. Sadly, N.C. always denied the greatness of his illustrations. "Painting and illustration cannot be mixed—one cannot merge from one into the other,” Wyeth lamented. In the few years before his accidental death in 1945, N.C. tried to find a new, non-illustration style of easel painting, but never could recapture the verve of his illustration work. Although N.C. Wyeth denied the fine art value of his illustrations, there’s no denying the beauty and imaginativeness of them today.