Mesa and Road East (1952) by Georgia O'KeeffeGeorgia O'Keeffe Museum
Georgia O'Keeffe, Mesa and Road East, 1952
In 1929, Georgia O'Keeffe made her first visit to the deserts of New Mexico. By the time this painting was made in 1952, she was well-accustomed to the contours and the colors of the land.
Her depiction of the curving road and undulating mesa owes more to the feeling of being in the desert, than the objective appearance of rocks and sand in the wind.
The purples, pinks, and soft greens speak of the early morning sun rising and slowly warming the arid plains.
It's a scene that emphasises the smallness of humanity and the vastness of time. The road is simply a grey streak in this ancient, untouched landscape.
The Argilla Road (1912) by Arthur Wesley Dow (American, 1857-1922)Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields
Arthur Wesley Dow, The Argilla Road, 1912
O'Keeffe's stylised landscapes owe much to the work of the earlier American artist, Arthur Wesley Dow. Born in 1857, Dow created many paintings, drawings, and prints depicting rural and wilderness areas of the United States.
In 1898, Dow designed this woodblock print depicting the Argilla Road, near his hometown of Ipswich, Massachusetts. This edition dates to 1912.
Dow was already an accomplished artist. He had studied in Paris under Gustave Boulanger and Jules Joseph Lefebvre, and he had become enamored by modern art and Japonisme. From 1896 to his death in 1922, he taught in a number of art institutes.
Dow was an enthusiastic participant in the arts & crafts revival, and emphasised the ideal over the real. He taught students to design pleasing landscapes from simple forms, rather than copy exactly what they saw.
We can see his teachings in this image: the wide open sky with patches of clouds. The winding road that disappears briefly, before reappearing on the next hill. The low trees that fill the right foreground and contrast with the open, golden fields to the left.
The flat colors, the asymmetric composition, and the choice of medium - woodcut - mark this work out as a modern artwork embodying the arts & crafts principles.
Mesa and Road East (1952) by Georgia O'KeeffeGeorgia O'Keeffe Museum
And the similarity between these artists isn't just a coincidence or conjecture…
O'Keeffe was introduced to the philosophy of Dow between 1912-1914, when she undertook art summer schools at the University of Virginia under Alon Bement. In 1914, she took a course at the Teachers College of Columbia University under Dow himself.
Dow's principles of personal style, abstraction, and composition caused a complete change in O'Keeffe's art, and set her on the path from traditional academic art to modernism.
The Argilla Road (1912) by Arthur Wesley Dow (American, 1857-1922)Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields
Dow's work never achieved the same fame as O'Keeffe's, instead, his legacy was lived on in the numerous textbooks he wrote on art and design, which were distributed to schools around the United States. Today, Dow's work and influence is being re-evaluated.
The Derelict (The Lost Boat) (1916) by Arthur Wesley DowZimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University
If you enjoyed Arthur Wesley Dow's The Argilla Road, then take a look at his other works, including The Derelict.
