AUG. 6 - 9, 2019 PART 4: WILDERNESS & THE ALASKA PAINTINGS -- THE REVIEWS
ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL 100 YEARS LATER by Doug Capra © 2018-19 Part 4 – Wilderness & the Alaska Paintings: The Reviews Aug. 6–9, 2019 ABOVE – Pioneers (or, Into the Sun ), 1919. Oil on canvas, 28 x 44 ¼ in. I have just finished the life of Blake and am now reading Blake’s prose catalogue, etc., and a book of Indian essays of Coomaraswamy . The intense and illuminating fervor of Blake! I have just read this: “The human mind cannot go beyond the gift of God, the Holy Ghost. To suppose that Art can go beyond the finest specimens of Art that are now in the world is not knowing what art is; it is being blind to the gifs of the Spirit.” Here in the supreme simplicity of life amid these mountains the spirit laughs at man’s concern with the form of Art, with new expression because the old is outworn! It is man’s own poverty of vision yielding him nothing, so that to save himself he must trick out in new garb the old, old ...