From Cows 1937

Arthur Dove made this watercolour, From Cows, around 1926, and it feels like a memory of a place. The colours are earthy and muted, like looking through old photographs. The shapes aren't exact, but sort of bleed into each other, which gives the whole thing a feeling of being recalled rather than directly seen. I love how the black lines act as the frame for these soft fields of colour. Like holding something precious in your hands. These lines are confident and playful, like a child's drawing, but they also provide a structure for the loose washes of pigment. Look at the way the whites are dabbed in on top of the brown - this is like flickers of light, or maybe little glitches in our memory? Dove's work reminds me a little of Marsden Hartley, who also had this thing for capturing the essence of a place, not just the surface. It feels like art is about keeping a conversation going, across time and between artists.