From Cows 1937

Arthur Dove made this watercolour, From Cows, with swift strokes and a palette that’s all earth and sky – browns, greens, blues, and creams, like colours pulled straight from the landscape. You can almost see him there, outside, squinting at the light, trying to capture the essence of these bovine forms. I mean, what's it like to be him, standing there with the paper, the brush loaded, making those decisions in the moment? The cows become almost abstract shapes, blobs of color defined with a fluid, dark line, giving definition to the undefined. It’s all about feeling, like he’s trying to catch a fleeting glimpse of something real. There’s a kinship with painters like Marsden Hartley or Georgia O’Keeffe, other artists trying to find new ways of seeing and representing the world in a way that almost anticipates it becoming an idea. Dove is part of that conversation, pushing boundaries and exploring how painting can be a way of thinking and knowing.