Gas Tanks (Study for "Tanks") 1937 - 1938

Curator: This is Arthur Dove's "Gas Tanks (Study for 'Tanks')," housed here at the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: It's got this lovely, almost melancholic feel, a bit like a hazy memory. The colors are muted, yet there's a strong structural element underlying it all. Curator: Indeed. Note the deliberate placement of each form, how the verticality of the tanks is echoed by the trees. The composition shows a clear investigation into spatial relationships and industrial forms rendered through watercolor. Editor: I’m also taken by how Dove simplifies the landscape and the industrial structures, creating a sense of quiet beauty in what might be seen as an otherwise utilitarian scene. Curator: He has definitely managed to find a harmony between the organic and the man-made here. Editor: Absolutely. It leaves me with a sense of nostalgia and also a strange sense of peace. Curator: Yes, and for me it clarifies the relationship between abstraction and lived experience. Editor: It’s pretty incredible, isn’t it? A brief watercolor like this containing so much feeling and thought.