Untitled 1942

This untitled artwork was made by Arthur Dove, possibly in 1942, and it’s a small piece, just a few inches in each direction. The earth tones feel very immediate, it’s as if you could lift them directly from the landscape. The way Dove uses color and shape, it's not about copying nature, but more like echoing its rhythms and energies. You see these big shapes, like chunks of land, maybe, or fields. And the way he dabs the paint on, in little dots and dashes, it gives the whole thing a lively, almost vibrating feel. There’s a vertical blob in the center, in pale blues and greens, with little dark squiggles. It anchors the whole composition, like a standing stone in the middle of a field. Dove’s process shares a lot of similarities with the paintings of Marsden Hartley, another artist who let the landscape speak through bold color and simplified forms. Art isn't about answers, but about keeping the conversation going.