Harbor and Orchard

Arthur Wesley Dow

ca. 1902–1908 · Color woodcut · Drawings and Prints

This panoramic image captures the view from Dow's studio on Bayberry Hill, near Ipswich, Massachusetts, and looks out toward Plum Island over flowering fruit trees and flooded salt marshes. The collapsed vertical perspective and emphasis on a fleeting moment in spring testify to the artist's continuing reliance on Japanese principles. After 1900, he abandoned the density of his small pillar prints for larger, more open landscapes. His use of bold, simple forms allows us to see how the edges of the wood blocks were carved to overlap slightly in the printing, letting the colors bump up against one another. This resulted from an abandonment of linear key blocks. As he printed, Dow wiped the inks to produce textural striations in the sky and water that mimic atmospheric effects but also register visually as abstract patterns.

Artist

Arthur Wesley Dow

Date

ca. 1902–1908

Medium

Color woodcut

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of Mrs. W. L. Putnam, 1942