Humanities & Social Sciences, Vol 7, No 8 (2014)

The concept "north" in the oeuvre of artist Rockwell Kent

Alexandra Sitnikova

Abstract


There is the research of paint and graphic art works by Rockwell Kent in the article, which are considered as the ways of visualization of the concept “north”. The first of all there is the review of the “waves” of art critics and audience’s attention to the oeuvre of Rockwell Kent: in 1920 the artist is the leader in American art, in 1960 he is popular in USSR, in 1980 – it is the years when the attention of American audience returns to the artist and in nowadays there is interest to his creative works in internet. According to the aims of the research to understand how the concept “north” is visualized in Rockwell Kent’s art works there are described general features of such series as Alaska pictures (made in 1918-1919), Tierra-del-Fuego pictures (made in 1922-1923), Greenland pictures (made in 1929, 1932-1933, 1935) in the article. There are also the analyses of such representative pictures as “Sunglare. Alaska” (1919), “Tierra-del-Fuego” (1922-1925), “November in Greenland” (1932-1933). The image of Eskimo people – aboriginal of Greenland – are described as it represented in graphic works by Rockwell Kent. In addition there are analyzed artistic traditions and methods of work of R. Kent in whole in the article.