Dove frequently listened to music while he painted, and he created numerous music-related works throughout his career. As an artist, he took a particular interest in the improvisational techniques of jazz, and his diaries make reference to favorite music ranging from Louis Armstrong and George Gershwin to the popular big-band sounds of Paul Whiteman and Bing Crosby and even the avant-garde work of Igor Stravinsky. Like several of his fellow American modernists, including Georgia O'Keeffe and Stuart Davis, Dove was also interested in the concept of synaesthesia, or the interaction of the various senses of perception: he worked with the idea that certain combinations of form, color, and line could evoke the same emotional and physical responses as the dynamics and harmonies of musical sound.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Sentimental Music
Artist:Arthur Dove (American, Canandaigua, New York 1880–1946 Huntington, New York)
Date:ca. 1913
Medium:Pastel on board (recto) ; pastel on board (verso)
Dimensions:21 5/8 in. × 18 in. (54.9 × 45.7 cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949
Object Number:49.70.77a, b
the artist (to Stieglitz); Alfred Stieglitz, New York (possibly 1913–d. 1946; his estate, 1946–49; gift to MMA)
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "Abstract Painting in America," February 12–March 22, 1935, no. 35 (as "oil").
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Three Centuries of American Painting," April 9–October 17, 1965, unnum. checklist.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Pastels in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1880–1930," October 17, 1989–January 14, 1990, extended to February 18, 1990, unnumbered cat. (p. 114).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Arthur Dove: Nature Abstracted," April 16, 1991–April 6, 1992, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Arthur Dove/Helen Torr: Land and Water," February 14–June 14, 1998, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe," October 13, 2011–January 2, 2012, no. 64.
Henry Geldzahler. American Painting in the Twentieth Century. New York, 1965, p. 54, ill. p. 52.
George M. Cohen. A History of American Art. New York, 1971, p. 177.
Barbara Haskell. Arthur Dove. Exh. cat., San Francisco Museum of Art. San Francisco, 1974, p. 29.
Abraham A. Davidson. Early American Modernist Painting, 1910–1935. New York, 1981, p. 53.
Lisa Mintz Messinger. "Georgia O'Keeffe." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 42 (Fall 1984), pp. 5, 7, ill.
Ann Lee Morgan. Arthur Dove: Life and Work, with a Catalogue Raisonné. Newark, Del., [1984], pp. 114–-15, no. 13.3, ill.
Judith Zilczer. "Synaesthesia and Popular Culture: Arthur Dove, George Gershwin, and the 'Rhapsody in Blue'." Art Journal 44 (Winter 1984), pp. 362–63, ill.
Sherrye Cohn. Arthur Dove: Nature as Symbol. Ann Arbor, Mich., 1985, p. 70.
Donna M. Cassidy. "Arthur Dove's Music Paintings of the Jazz Age." American Art Journal 20 (1988), pp. 7, 9, 11, fig. 5.
Lisa Mintz Messinger. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1988, p. 15, fig. 2.
Donna M. Cassidy. "The Painted Music of America in the Works of Arthur G. Dove, John Marin, and Joseph Stella: An Aspect of Cultural Nationalism." PhD diss., Boston University, 1988, pp. 107, 109–12, 115–20.
Mary Wayne Fritzsche inAmerican Pastels in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1989, pp. 112, 115, ill. pp. 114 (color), 189.
Gail Levin in Gail Levin and Marianne Lorenz. Theme and Improvisation: Kandinsky and the American Avant-Garde, 1912–1950. Exh. cat., Phillips Collection, Washington, D. C. Dayton, Oh., 1992, p. 23.
Barbara Haskell. Joseph Stella. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 1994, pp. 47, 56, ill.
Melanie Kirschner. Arthur Dove: Watercolors and Pastels. New York, 1998, pp. 16, 34–35, 52, 77, pl. 4.
Donna M. Cassidy. Jazz: An American Muse. "Seeing" Musically: The Meanings of Music in 20th-Century American Art. Exh. cat., Reynolda House Museum of American Art. Winston-Salem, N. C., 2000, p. 67, ill.
Lisa Mintz Messinger. Georgia O'Keeffe. London, 2001, pp. 21, 23, ill.
Jessica Murphy inStieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe. The Alfred Stieglitz Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Lisa Mintz Messinger. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2011, pp. 109, 258, no. 64, ill. (color).
Rachel Mustalish inStieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe. The Alfred Stieglitz Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Lisa Mintz Messinger. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2011, p. 109, ill.
Rachael Z. DeLue inInventing Abstraction, 1910–1925: How a Radical Idea Changed Modern Art. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art. New York, 2012, colorpl. 83.
Debra Bricker Balken with contributions by Jessie Sentivan. Arthur Dove: A Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings and Things. New York, 2021, pp. 32–33, 89, 124, no. 1913.3, ill. (color), date it 1913.
Arthur Dove (American, Canandaigua, New York 1880–1946 Huntington, New York)
ca. 1940–46
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