Nearby Ipswich, Mass. hardly elicits thoughts of artistic grandeur.
Yet at the turn of the 20th century, Arthur Wesley Dow was composing striking thematic woodcuts, paintings and photographs of his rural life. Dow was inspired by both local New England nature and architecture as well as Japanese woodcuts.
"Arthur Wesley Dow: Photographer and Printmaker," an exhibit displaying his various works, is now at the Museum of Fine Arts, where Dow first encountered the museum's then-underdeveloped collection of Japanese art. The exhibit itself is arranged in the shape of a horseshoe, encircling a stairwell. As the viewer walks around, the works seem to blend together.
The blue cyanographs, which are created using a photographic device that records the blue light in the atmosphere, comprise the majority of the pieces displayed. They showcase Dow's experimentation with color, line and "notan," a Japanese notion of harmony between light and dark.
As in his self-portrait "This is A.W. Dow," some cyanographs merely express a range of blue values. The lack of contrast resembles the self-portraits of Rembrandt: The artist is merely the creator of the pieces, even when he is the subject of his own works.
Dow's most provocative works, however, do not use people as subjects, but trees. The photographs of trees in varying seasons express a range of emotion far more captivating than any model could be. The snow-capped boughs of one tree contrast with the sunny, lazy-summer feel of another tree. The photographs of these quasi-anthropomorphic trees are arranged in a large group to encapsulate the emotional diversity between them.
Dow photographed what most people would consider mundane. His lens captures boats and other hallmarks of a simple, rustic lifestyle. Small-town buildings were converted into woodcuts, displaying the colorful facets of life in a rural New England hamlet.
Dow developed several cyanographs differently to emphasize different aspects of his subject matter. The set of two cyanographs entitled "Edge of Common Fields" uses tonalism, an artistic style which depicts landscapes shrouded in mist or colored atmosphere, to either emphasize the foreground or the background.
Dow also toyed with the traditional Japanese art form of woodcuts. Rather than produce the same exact image for each woodcut, he changed the colors and thereby the season of the scene. His use of color variation lent itself to thematic changes, similar to his photographs of trees in different seasons.
Dow produced three different pieces showcasing his compositional methods using the same subject of a river. "Band of a River" is a colorful woodcut based of his photograph "Salt Marsh." Dow also experimented with aptly-named "pillar" prints, based on a style of Japanese prints. "Band of a River (Sunset)" is one such print of the same salt marsh.
Although only a few were made, Dow produced eye-catching posters. His travels in France instilled a sense of curiosity in the photographer, who responded with "Modern Art," a progressive experimentation of graphic design.
Dow effectively set the standard in printmaking and photography through his works. In his school, he taught pupils the methods he had learned and encouraged them to experiment in their mediums. Changes in tone and compositional values wrought tremendous transformation to a piece.
To fully understand the life and work of A.W. Dow, the MFA sublimely integrates all aspects of his portfolio into one cohesive exhibit. The thematic and medium range is great, yet the MFA arranges all the pieces in a logical fashion.
To appreciate the profound beauty of New England, the Dow exhibit lends a photographic eye to local life.
