Arthur Wesley Dowv

Arthur Wesley Dow (American, 1857 – 1922)

Autumn - A Landscape Sketch

The Blue Dragon 1892

Flowering Field, 1895

Boats at Rest, c.1895

Nightfall, c. 1900

Ipswich Marsh, circa 1900

The Hill Field, 1908-10

Mount Hood, 1917

Moonrise

Arthur Wesley Dow (1857 – 1922) was an American painter, printmaker, photographer, and influential arts educator. Dow taught at major American arts training institutions for 30 years, among them Teachers College, Columbia University; the Art Students League of New York; Pratt Institute; and, from 1900, his own Summer School of Art at Ipswich, Massachusetts. His ideas were quite revolutionary for the period; he taught that rather than copying nature, art should be created by elements of the composition, like line, mass and color. His ideas were published in the 1899 book Composition: A Series of Exercises in Art Structure for the Use of Students and Teachers. The following extracts are from the prefatory chapter "Beginnings" to the second edition of this book (1912):
"Composition ... expresses the idea upon which the method here presented is founded - the "putting together" of lines, masses and colors to make a harmony. ... Composition, building up of harmony, is the fundamental process in all the fine arts. ... A natural method is of exercises in progressive order, first building up very simple harmonies ... Such a method of study includes all kinds of drawing, design and painting. It offers a means of training for the creative artist, the teacher or one who studies art for the sake of culture."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Wesley_Dow