A Reasonable Facsimile

An exploration of the tensions between representation and abstraction, A Reasonable Facsimile appears purely nonobjective yet nevertheless suggests a landscape. The yellow half-circle at the top could represent the sun, one of Dove’s favorite subjects, and the areas of green and brown may be the earth below. When he exhibited this work in 1942 at An American Place, Dove published a poem in the catalogue, which includes the lines “There is much to be done— / Works of nature are abstract. / They do not lean on other things for meanings.” The title of this painting sums up Dove’s artistic project over the four decades of his career: to capture the abstraction of nature by creating “a reasonable facsimile” of its appearance.