Arthur Dove Quotes

We cannot express the light in nature because we have not the sun. We can only express the light we have in ourselves.

It is hard for a flat thing to understand a round one.

I look at nature, I see myself. Paintings are mirrors, so is nature.

It is the form the idea takes in the imagination rather than the form as it exists outside.

How do you feel about a person when you're talking over the phone? If you know them, or if you don't know them, do you get something, do you put that into words of your own, from what they say, or from what you think? Or if it were music over the radio, have you ever tried to think how it would look?

I would like to make something that is real in itself that does not remind anyone of any other things, and that does not have to be explained like the letter A, for instance.

What constitutes American painting?... things may be in America, but it's what is in the artist that counts. What do we call 'American' outside of painting? Inventiveness, restlessness, speed, change.

I should like to take the wind and water and sand as a motif and work with them, but it has to be simplified in most cases to colour and force lines, just as music has done with sound.

Theories have been outgrown. The means is disappearing, the reality of the sensation alone remains. It is that in its essence which I wish to put down. It should be a delightful adventure.