Arthur Dove (American, 1880–1946) Pastel on canvas 17 3/4 x 21
1/2 in. (45.1 x 54.6 cm) Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949
(49.70.72) Early in his career, Dove produced a highly
innovative series of pastel drawings that applied abstract
formal means to subjects taken from nature. The shapes of a
cow's head and body fill this canvas, in the curving forms of
flanks, horns, and tail that fuse and intermingle. We seem to
view the cow from several merging vantage points, as if we were
shifting positions relative to the cow, or as if the cow itself
were slowly moving. In this fragmentation and overlapping, Dove
may have been influenced by Cubist works that he had seen
exhibited in Europe and New York. Moreover, since he was earning
his living as a farmer in the 1910s, close physical contact with
animals was part of his everyday routine. Indeed, the subject of
Cow seems to be presented from a "milker's eye view," which
presses the viewer close to the animal's rear legs and udders.