Nature Symbolized 1911

Arthur Dove made this painting called Nature Symbolized and it’s full of gestural marks and earthy tones—yellows, greens, and blacks—that swirl and vibrate. I can imagine Dove in his studio, maybe in the countryside, moving paint around on the canvas, trying to capture something essential about the natural world. What’s nature anyway? He must have asked himself, and how can I symbolize that feeling, that energy? The paint looks applied in layers, built up through trial and error, a real back and forth between intention and accident. Look at the way the black curves loop around, creating a sense of depth and movement, almost like the wind blowing through trees. Dove was part of a generation of artists who were pushing the boundaries of representation, and I think he was definitely in conversation with other painters like Marsden Hartley and Georgia O'Keeffe, all trying to find new ways of seeing and expressing the world around them. For Dove, painting was an embodied form of expression, it embraced ambiguity, allowing for multiple interpretations.