THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT SAILING, seafaring

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Reynard Hart
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But whatever the cause for this masculine identity, the relationship appears ancient, or at least as ancient as that imaginary moment between the Iliad and the Odyssey when Ulysses returned to the

1 THE MARITIME MASCULINE Matthew J. Abrams " THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT SAILING, seafaring and even the sea that seems inescapably masculine. Perhaps it's because the profession has remained a maledominated one, filled throughout the Western tradition with uniquely homosocial rites, rituals and mores. But whatever the cause for this masculine identity, the relationship appears ancient, or at least as ancient as that imaginary moment between the Iliad and the Odyssey when Ulysses returned to the shores of Troy, boarded his ship and began his journey home. That moment, too, seems an especially pregnant one. As long as people have sailed, the transition from shore to ship and ship to shore---of approaching the sea and raising sail, or approaching land and lowering sail-has held our fascination. Consider Benjamin West's epic painting, Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicus (1768), where a crowd has gathered to see the general's funeral procession, many of whom cannot bear to see the urn pass by. Alternately, consider Tennyson's beloved "Ulysses," where our "idle king," who long ago completed his epic journey and now nears his life's end, yearns for the reverse-to board his ship, "push off'' once more and die at sea (surrounded by his aging sailor comrades, no less). It's worth noting that ten years after Tennyson published "Ulysses," Melville gave the world his own vision of unbridled maritime masculinity with Moby Dick, including that tender moment in chapter twenty-one, "Goingaboard," where Ishmael and Queequeg take to the Pequod, side by side. But such examples bring into focus something else, which shall remain my focus: there is a marked difference between being at sea and going to sea; the latter dwells in a shift---one could even call it a ritual space-while the former signals the crossing of Benjamin West, Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicus,oil on canvas, that space's boundary. (Yale University Art Gallery) One, then, is transitive; the other is intransitive. This strikes me as important. To go to sea is to leave one's time; to be at sea is to dwell in another. Kent, a world-explorer and professional-grade sailor, was an artist who knew better than most what it meant to be at sea and to go to sea. He was also an artist who knew better than most how to dramatize the masculine form. His mature work often showcases nude or hyper-masculinized male bodies. And given his personal history, it is less than surprising that these bodies regularly populate maritime scenes-in fact, my main argument here is that Kent's maritime life and masculine aesthetic are reciprocal functions. There is much to be said about Kent's maritime works, especially when he privileged that moment of transition. In these works, what we find is not quite a landscape and not quite a seascape but something else-a shore-scape, if you will. These are also scenes where men are about to become, or have just finished being, sea-faring creatures. I find many of Kent's true seascapes powerful, but I find these other works even more so because of how they inhabit a strange middle-ground-a metamorphosis. For example, Kent's early masterwork, Down to the Sea, 1910 [p. 24], exemplifies this category of the shore-scape, and I would like to perform a close reading of it. The hope is that, in doing so, we may better define what I have called the maritime masculine, while also relating Down to the Sea to Kent's larger aesthetic. The two are closely related. Indeed, the maritime masculine is among the most defining characteristics of Rockwell Kent's vast and incredibly diverse style. But let us begin with Down to the Sea and spiral out from there. "Dear Jamie," Kent once began a letter to the painter Jamie Wyeth, "(as an ancient mariner 2017 /

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The Greeks believed completely in the existence of gods and goddesses; polytheism Believed that gods took an active interest in human life Gods

The Greeks believed completely in the existence of gods and goddesses; polytheism Believed that gods took an active interest in human life Gods behaved in human ways (possessed human characteristics) Respect