Nature Symbolized (or Reefs) 1924

Curator: Arthur Dove’s 1924 painting, "Nature Symbolized," also known as "Reefs," presents a fascinating array of geometric shapes. It’s all oil and metallic paint on canvas. What strikes you most when you first look at it? Editor: It feels…claustrophobic, strangely. Like looking at a city flattened and condensed, with those pillar-like structures reminding me of tightly packed skyscrapers or, dare I say, even dense minerals extracted for raw production? The color palette definitely heightens that sense of pressure, the earthiness fighting against the slivers of blue. Curator: Claustrophobic is an interesting take! For me, there’s an element of playful mystery in its abstraction. I see forms suggestive of both organic and built environments, but never quite resolving into one or the other. Dove seemed perpetually interested in the dialogue between nature's energy and man's interpretation. Editor: And interpretation always requires labor, right? Think about the mining of the metallic pigments used here. This tension plays out in the painting's visual vocabulary, with manufactured, geometric shapes rendered using distinctly handcrafted methods of applying paint. Each of those seemingly simple, geometric blocks represents the application of raw materials into use value. Curator: Exactly! The textures created by the metallic paints are fascinating too, adding this sense of inner light radiating from within the shapes, almost mimicking the way light reflects off water or minerals in nature, don’t you think? It gives life to forms that otherwise could appear quite static, almost rigid. Editor: Sure, there's beauty, but there's a story of resource extraction folded into this abstract vision. Each glimmer pulls us back to think about production and labor. It prompts us to think about the landscapes mined and transformed. Are we even supposed to look away? Curator: No, maybe not, but I love that it also operates on a sensory, almost synesthetic level for me. It’s like hearing a musical chord through shapes and colours. This makes it feel more personal and accessible, than say, just looking at the means of production alone, as you've outlined. Editor: I think we're not far apart, really. Dove highlights an engagement with natural forms in ways that is intimately, materially tied up with broader processes. It allows a reflection not only of the creative force but of labour and capital.