A Reasonable Facsimile

Arthur DoveWW-1942-133745

1942·Encaustic on canvas·47.3 × 63.2 cm (18 5/8 × 24 7/8 in.)

<p>An exploration of the tensions between representation and abstraction, <em>A Reasonable Facsimile</em> appears purely nonobjective yet nevertheless suggests a landscape. The yellow half-circle at the top could represent the sun, one of Dove’s favorite subjects, and the areas of green and brown may be the earth below. When he exhibited this work in 1942 at An American Place, Dove published a poem in the catalogue, which includes the lines “There is much to be done— / Works of nature are abstract. / They do not lean on other things for meanings.” The title of this painting sums up Dove’s artistic project over the four decades of his career: to capture the abstraction of nature by creating “a reasonable facsimile” of its appearance.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1942
Medium: Encaustic on canvas
Dimensions: 47.3 × 63.2 cm (18 5/8 × 24 7/8 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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