The goal of the chase, illustrated

Ishmael's and Ahab's quests are different, but similar. Both chase meaning, both are driven by what they don't know and feel they must try to understand. Ahab's just more pissed off about it. Ok, maybe that's a bit simplistic, but there is the idea that if only we could hitch a ride on the whale...or at least what the whale represents--particularly a unique, mysterious, genius whale, we could ride to the bottom of the ocean and back and out, up into the stars, and the ungraspable phantom of life would be a bit more graspable.

Beth Schultz chose this Rockwell Kent illustration as the graphic for her "Unpainted to the Last" exhibit poster in 1995 (that cooresponded with her book of American Art inspired by the M-D). In the Kent illustrated edition, this graphic is in the "Moby Dick" chapter, but I always think that it illustrates the following quote (from Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in Stone; in Mountains; in Stars.)

"Thus at the North have I chased Leviathan round and round the Pole with the revolutions of the bright points that first defined him to me. And beneath the effulgent Antarctic skies I have boarded the Argo-Navis, and joined the chase against the starry Cetus far beyond the utmost stretch of Hydrus and the Flying Fish. With a frigate's anchors for my bridle-bitts and fasces of harpoons for spurs, would I could mount that whale and leap the topmost skies, to see whether the fabled heavens with all their countless tents really lie encamped beyond my mortal sight!"

A nice collection of Kent's M-D illustrations are available at the Plattsburgh State Art Museum Web site in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Kent illustrated edition of M-D.

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