MARCH 11-13 , 1919
ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL
100 YEARS LATER
by Doug Capra © 2018-19
March 11-13, 1919
ABOVE – "Sunrise and Sea Smoke" I took this photo one freezing cold morning in late January or February sometime between 1999 and 2000. Digital cameras did not take high definition shots at that time. This is what we get when temperatures dip into the teens or single digits combined with a fierce north wind. The sea water is warmer than the air above it, causing the sea smoke. The wind-chill factor descends well below zero. Kent describes this weather in March 1919 just before he leaves
Fox Island. Capra photo.
Fox Island. Capra photo.
Tuesday, March 11, 1919 – It’s cold and the north wind blows.
With so little time left in Alaska, and with more daylight available, Kent
paints fanatically. Knowing time is short, Olson is always underfoot. He knows
how lonely he’ll be when the Kents leave. “He
treasures every little moment we can give him,” Kent writes. “In his
pocket-book are snapshots of Kathleen, Clara, and Barbara.” Kathleen has
sent her husband a curl of Barbara’s hair and Olson wants it. Kent loves Olson,
but he won’t part with his youngest daughter’s curl. Kent is all packed and
ready to go. He had hoped to be in Seward by now but the north wind blows.
Again, the wilderness is his master. There are some things he can’t control.
Olson tells him and Rockie another of his Alaskan adventures, and Kent records
it in his journal. Rockie writes more letters home.
BELOW -- One of Rockie's letters from this time 100 years ago. These are from Kent's 1970 special edition of Wilderness, and the 1996 reprint with my foreword. Translation -- "March 13 -- DEARIST MOTHER Yisturday it was nirly the coldest day we have had. And I played dingo while Father painted outside nirly all daylong. MARCH 13TH I STADE in the house and warked on an olden nap {map}. In the evening it got wormr. I went out to play dingo. MARCH 14TH THE CALLEST {coldest} DAY. NOTHING TO SAY WE HAD THE BEST ICE CREAM. I LKE TO HEAR MR. OLSON'S AND MR. KENT'S STORIES THE{Y} TELL NICE STORIES LOVINGLY ROCKWELL.
Just
a side note on Rockie's letters. Note the little drawings he does within the words.
Certainly this is what children do, but I wonder where he learned this. Kent includes illustrations in some letters but not like this. Kent is reading William Blake -- Songs of Innocence and of Experience,
and perhaps of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. He's also reading Gilchrist's
biography of Blake. I assume there are illustrations available. Below is an
illustrated page from Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Note the little
drawings within the text. I wonder if Kent hasn't shown Rockie some of these
pages and encouraged him. Perhaps he's imitating that style. Or perhaps it's just my imagination.
Before we delve into an early March 1919 letter, I want to sum
up my thoughts about the man who was Rockwell Kent on Fox Island during
1918-19. As I transcribe the letters, study them, and put them into larger
contexts, I gain new understandings. Here are some of my interpretations.
Kent goes through a secular yet authentic “Dark Night of the
Soul” on Fox Island. He confronts his demons during the Hour of the Wolf –
those lonely times between perhaps 11 p.m. and 3 or 4 a.m. in the morning.
During the day he paints or draws; he completes the many chores necessary for
survival; he cooks meals and eats them with Rockie; he supervises his son’s
schooling and perhaps goes on a hike with him. Now it’s bedtime and he reads
stories to Rockie – tales that bring him back to his own childhood. His son falls asleep
and Kent now retreats to that small table by that large south-facing window he
put in the cabin. BELOW you an see that table and window in a photo of the cabin interior taken by Kent.
He may spend some time working on his illustrated journal in
which he puts into the narrative all the positive energy that will eventually
translate into his paintings and into Wilderness:
A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska.
He may write letters to friends like Zigrosser and Chappell. Once into the
early morning hours, he begins rereading Kathleen's letters and writing to her – and this is when he dumps
on his wife all the negative energy he as stored up throughout the day. Some of it
is unkind, demanding, selfish, critical, condescending, even cruel. The worse parts
of those letters combine with loving statements – “My darling sweetheart;
“Little mother” – as he tries to temper
the negative with both regret for his thoughts and justification for them. He’ll
apologizes mid-sentence for his depression and criticism – but he can’t help
writing precisely what’s on his mind, he says. He has high expectations of his wife. She
owes it to him and to her nature to achieve perfection. His friend George
Chappell has advised him that expecting that kind of perfection of his wife
and family will destroy the relationships. Strive for the ideal if you wish,
but appreciate and cherish what you have, George tells him. Kent has listened.
By the fall of 1918, his infidelities have caught up with him.
Kathleen is older and wiser and – though she still loves him – she’s less
tolerant. We see this evolve in their correspondence during the Jennie affair
(1909-1912) and again beginning in 1916 with Hildegarde. She taunts him in her late-Sept. 1918 letters. While on Monhegan Island, a
coastguardsman, Mr. Walker, is attentive to her and she returns his interests. Kent
is so angry and jealous that he’s ready to leave Alaska by early October 1918.
He’s afraid Kathleen is about to be unfaithful to him. By the end of November,
early December he has finally begun to understand how his often thoughtless,
critical and cruel behavior toward Kathleen has nearly destroyed his marriage. He realizes she is not the same young girl me married on New Years Eve 1908. He writes those two heartfelt letters to his wife, sends one to Zigrosser and
the other to Chappell several weeks early asking that they be delivered to
Kathleen on their 10th wedding anniversary with
flowers and other gifts. At Kathleen’s insistence, Kent has agreed to leave
Hildegarde and become a kinder, more faithful husband. He asks, pleads, demands
almost threatens Kathleen to join him in Alaska. He’s lonely and homesick. Part
of Fox Island represents a solitude of exile – not what he was seeking. Perhaps
he realizes that if his Alaska venture fails to gain him the fame and the success
he craves AND at the same time he loses Kathleen – he’ll have nothing. If this
last-ditch wilderness adventure disappoints, at least he’ll have his family.
Kathleen won’t join him in Alaska. Kent doesn’t give up, pleading with her
through early March 1919. Even Olson has written to Kathleen at Kent’s request
enticing her to come. Rockie, too, pens touching letters for “Mother dear” to join
them, or else they’ll have to leave. Through her friendship with the Wagner
family in New York, Kathleen has secured $2000 from Dr. Theodore Wagner which
would allow Kent to stay in Alaska through the summer. Kent won’t accept it if
Kathleen doesn’t join him. He makes it clear to his wife – the story we’ll tell
people is that I’m returning because of your loneliness and despair – not because
of mine. If people know the truth, I’ll never get another sponsor to finance a
painting trip. You’re the reason I’m returning, his letters imply. If this
venture fails it’s your fault, Kathleen. Yet, he has made so many friends in
Seward, and gained so much support, that he considers a return trip to Alaska
sometime – this time with Kathleen. But for now, he must return to his wife.
ABOVE -- Kent's ketch of the Fox Island farm and ranch from Wilderness. Olson's cabin is at far left. Kent's is at far right. In between is the fox corral and a goat shed.
Upon his return, Kent decides he will leave New York City with
its temptations. The more positive side of the solitude he has experienced on
Fox Island – not the exile and loneliness – has convinced him that this is the
life he wants, away from the ignorant and boot-licking herd. He wants to be with his
family and somewhere easily accessible friends like Zigrosser and Chappell. He's not a hermit. He
tells Kathleen that when he returns the two will wander New England looking for
such a place to settle. Those two anniversary letters convince Kathleen that there
is a new Rockwell, a changed man. They both work for a fresh start with their
marriage. The thought of their new rural New England home and a kinder and
faithful husband gives Kathleen hope, and her letters become more open and
loving. So do Rockwell’s. Some cynics may say that Kent is doing this only to regain
Kathleen’s trust, that he hasn’t really changed. I strongly disagree. He is a
different man. He has undergone a secular “Dark Night of the Soul” that has
given him more insight into himself and his marriage. We must never forget that
Kent, at age 36, has no idea that his Alaska art and book will finally gain for
him the fame and financial security for which he has so long labored. Don’t
forget that his Newfoundland venture resulted in complete failure in terms of
artistic and financial success. In his mind, Alaska might be the same. Rockwell
Kent is spiritually, physically and emotionally exhausted. He most certainly
hopes for success, but if it doesn’t happen, what will he have left? He has
changed in that he has a sincere desire to change. The question is, does he
have the inner strength to actually change, and what if success shoves him back into New York City's art world with all its glamour and temptation?
ABOVE -- The exposed roots of a spruce tree on the beach in front of the Kent cabin ruins. Capra photo.
In a March 4, 1919 letter to Kathleen from Fox Island, we see
what his immediate goal is upon his Alaska return. As you’ll note in the letter,
Kent’s ego is still huge. Kathleen’s role in all this is her submission to him.
But the nature of that submission has changed, in Kent's mind at least. She has more power over him than
she had before – at least for the present. If he must live out his life in
artistic obscurity and with financial stress, at least he will have Kathleen,
the children, and a haven like the one he describes below. But – if he can’t
deliver this ideal paradise to his family – yet again rises the thought of
annihilation.
Kathleen, my
darling wife:-
In our new estate there must be a
stream of water and we must conduct it near to the house and over a fall. To it
must lead a smooth sanded or grassy path. And every morning, summer and winter,
father and son, daughter if they will, and wife shall take their ‘plunge’
beneath it. There must be a sheltered, sunny, soft, grass-carpeted dell
adjacent to it where all of us can bask in nakedness and get from the sun the
true golden color that human bodies should be. Isn’t this wonderful ------ !
There must be an arbor with a long table spread beneath it for our summer
feasts; there must be a bower, or trellised vine-covered summer house where
both the sun and moon can flicker through, where you and I…shall make love.
There shall be smooth lawn, wide pasture with sheep and a cow upon it, woods
that will always hold a mystery, a garden on a sunny slope, neat paths bordered
with flowers, bird houses in the gables – one a model of this little cabin on
Fox Island. These are some of the wonders of the paradise among some remote,
forsaken hills!
If for any reason I can’t bring this
about for us I think always that I’ll just say farewell to this damned world
and at last really leave you in peace. I’ll talk with you about this scheme. I
somehow count on your agreeing.
To-day I baked such light fluffy
top-heavy loaves that wanted to run out all over the oven! I tell you, you
women know nothing of the art of bread making, so I have at last learned it. It
has begun to seem to me that the best summer’s plan for you and me is to find
an abandoned farm and then move the whole family there and camp in tents while
I repair the house. Wouldn’t it be fun! The children would be no trouble, just
turn them loose, naked. You’ll think I’m strangely fond of the ‘undraped
nude.’ Rockwell and I have indeed become wild men. And wild folk all of you
must be to watch us and not incur our scorn. Rockwell is filling out splendidly,
ambitious about his development. I think that in our new life we must cut loose
from time and place and all the conventions of thought and living of this
rotten period in the world’s history. I think that now with the ‘allied
victory, which is an american victory, mankind is betrayed into such a slough
of mediocrity as must stifle all the finer flowers of genius. I simply want to
flee from it as from a hateful dangerous thing. I want our home to be a kingdom
situated in space in the year of the lord 36. Amen. {Kent resolves to begin his new life at his current age, 36}
I am tired. I want to be with you.
Don’t fight with me anymore. You’ve never gained a thing by fighting for it.
You have gained and held my deepest reverence by your submission. That is your
power to overcome me with. It is that alone which has reunited us now. Don’t be
unhappy anymore, dear sweetheart and don’t lose courage, for I have always
adored you for that.
Goodnight, my sweet sweet girl. Ever
and ever your own lonely husband.
Rockwell
Kent is packed and ready to leave Fox Island. The north wind blows. The temperature plummets. The two adventurers snuggle at night in their bed. The wind-chill factor is well-below zero. The cabin appears haunted, empty, forlorn. As soon as the weather clears, the north wind dies down and the seas cooperate, they’ll depart for Seward. The pioneering is over. As Kent ends his illustrated journal he’ll write – “Ah God, and now the world again!”
BELOW -- One fine summer day several years, while I wandered Fox Island, I placed a copy of the Wilderness edition with my foreword beside one of fallen logs that was once part of the Kent cabin. Capra photo.
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