| Arthur Dove (1880-1946) | ||
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Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery
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Dove viewed nature in abstact
terms. His 1910 "extractions" from nature were among the earliest abstracts
paintings in America. "Take wind and water and sand as a motif and work with them...simplified in most cases to color and force lines and substances, just as music has done with sound." He sought synesthesia - use of one sense to convey another (paint images of sounds, etc.). This poem was written in response to Dove's Chicago show: "But Mr. Dove is far too keen / To let a single bird be seen: / To show the pigeons would not do / And so he simply paints the coo." (Geldzahler, Henry. American Painting in the Twentieth Century. New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1965. p. 54.)
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Dove sound: synesthesia