Untitled 1942

Arthur Dove made this small, untitled painting on paper sometime in the first half of the twentieth century. The muted colors and simplified forms suggest a kind of intimate abstraction. But it is the very act of abstraction that we need to think about in its social context. Dove was part of a generation of American artists seeking to create a truly modern art, one that could stand alongside the avant-gardes of Europe while also expressing something unique about the American experience. This was a period of intense debate about the role of art in society. Should art serve a social or political purpose, or should it be purely aesthetic? Dove, like many of his contemporaries, gravitated towards abstraction as a way to express universal emotions and experiences, to avoid the specificities of time and place, which could be seen as a progressive and democratic approach. To understand Dove's project more fully, we can look to the writings of critics and art historians who grappled with these questions, and explore the archives of the galleries and museums that supported artists like Dove. The meaning of art is always contingent on the social and institutional context in which it is made and received.