Untitled 1942

Curator: Viewing this, my initial impression is that it evokes something primeval. Primitive perhaps, a child's drawing rendered by an adult mind. Editor: That’s fascinating. We’re looking at an untitled artwork made with watercolor on paper by Arthur Dove in 1942. What draws you to this feeling of the primeval? Curator: Note how shapes, simplified and semi-abstracted, speak to something older. Those colors -- earth tones meeting softer blues -- feel like landscapes held in the collective unconscious. Dove is not showing you, he is reminding you. Editor: The composition, I agree, simplifies form. Abstraction in art, especially as Dove explored it, was so heavily shaped by the politics and experience of its time. What are we trying to express as a culture during WWII, a nation in conflict. It speaks to seeking clarity amidst the chaos of modernity. Curator: Precisely. And this echoes far beyond. Observe that rhythmic quality achieved through repetition of color blocks and organic, flowing lines: do these mirror patterns found in ancient textiles? Art isn’t made in isolation, these patterns carry information passed through time, echoed throughout various human visual expressions. Editor: I see what you mean about echoes. Modernism did so often look to pre-modern art forms for inspiration – think of Picasso or even Matisse looking to African sculpture. It wasn’t necessarily a removal from culture, but a reconceptualization of it, to define America's role in arts and culture. Curator: Exactly. And with Arthur Dove, there is a sense of reducing things down to the most impactful essence, the visual symbols. This search, perhaps, to distill feeling into pure color, and form stripped down to the core shapes of an emotional experience, becomes more potent with each passing year. The visual symbols bypass rational thought. Editor: Perhaps it suggests a path toward harmony when the world outside is not, an effort to reassemble after great disruption. Curator: A worthy cause for art in society to follow, as both an iconographic reference to historical patterns and to create new modes of seeing and remembering. Editor: An interesting intersection indeed, considering Dove’s work as both a reflection of historical consciousness and the future potential of modern painting.