Arthur Dove
Although titled Clouds and Water, the wind is the main subject of this captivating seascape. Its presence is suggested by bold gray lines that fracture the sky and its effects are seen in the billowing clouds drifting across an expanse that fills more than half the canvas. Like large leaves on the water only the curved sails of the three sailboats are visible above the swells.
The scene is filled with energy—the viewer can almost hear the rush of the wind. Yet dark lines, which define both the rounded hills in a palette of browns and greens and outline the many shades of the aquamarine sea, give the effect of a stained glass window, frozen in time.
Arthur Dove was a pioneer of modernism in the United States and is arguably considered the first American abstract painter. He favored local landscapes and natural surroundings and captured the spiritual essence of nature through form and color, stripping away the objective until he arrived at the subjective. Together with John Marin, Marsden Hartley, and Georgia O’Keeffe, Dove exhibited his works at the famed 291 art gallery owned by renowned photographer Alfred Stieglitz.
This scene was painted while Dove and his companion (later wife) Helen “Reds” Torr spent a winter as caretakers of a yacht club on Long Island, NY. Being directly on the water allowed Dove to witness firsthand the changing skies and seas and the response of the landscape to the ephemeral forces of nature.
- Martina Koegan
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