Cross and Weather Vane

Arthur DoveWW-1936-049941

1936·Oil on canvas·88.3 × 62.6 cm (34 3/4 × 24 5/8 in.)

<p>In 1933 Arthur Dove and his wife, Helen Torr, moved to Geneva, New York, where he had been raised and where he found renewed inspiration in the local landscape. Dove began exploring it in depth, producing canvases such as <em>Cross and Weather Vane</em>. The composition incorporates trees, rolling hills, and the round orb of the sun—all natural elements that recur with frequency in the artist’s work. These features mingle harmoniously with the manmade objects in the painting, such as the arrow-shaped weather vane, which seems to take flight like a bird. The small brown cross, positioned against a gray, rocklike form, represents Dove’s belief in the interconnectedness of spirituality and nature.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1936
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 88.3 × 62.6 cm (34 3/4 × 24 5/8 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Arthur Dove

Artist

Arthur Dove

Painting

Arthur Garfield Dove was an American artist. An early American modernist, he is often considered the first American abstract painter. Dove used a wide range of media, sometimes in unconventional combinations, to produce his abstractions and his abstract landscapes. Me and the Moon from 1937 is a good example of an Arthur Dove abstract landscape and has been referred to as one of the culminating works of his career. Dove made a series of experimental collages in the 1920s. He also experimented with techniques, combining paints like hand mixed oil or tempera over a wax emulsion as exemplified in Dove's 1938 painting Tanks, in the collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

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