Storm Clouds

Arthur Dove American

Not on view

As its title suggests, this work portrays a stormy landscape, but one dramatically abstracted into a series of arched and rolling bands of color surrounding a large eyelike shape. Dove’s colors are the muted shades of earth and overcast sky, with the silvery, metallic sheen of the artist-made frame echoing and enhancing the grays of the composition. Like many avant-garde artists, Dove experimented with abstraction as a way to pursue an inner vision: he simplified his subjects to their most basic, organic forms, expressing a spiritual force beyond their tangible reality.

Storm Clouds, Arthur Dove (American, Canandaigua, New York 1880–1946 Huntington, New York), Wax emulsion on canvas in artist-made frame

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