Spring Dance

Arthur F. Mathews, Spring Dance, ca. 1917, oil on canvas, 51 ⁷⁄₈ x 47 ⁵⁄₈ in. (131.7 x 121.0 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David J. Carlson, 1982.126

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Artwork Details

Title: Spring Dance
Artist: Arthur F. Mathews
Date: ca. 1917
Location: Smithsonian American Art Museum
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2nd Floor
/
East Wing
Dimensions: 51 ⁷⁄₈ x 47 ⁵⁄₈ in. (131.7 x 121.0 cm.)
Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David J. Carlson
Mediums: oil
Mediums Description: oil on canvas
Classifications: Painting
Subjects: Performing arts — dance
Performing arts — music — flute
Landscape — season — spring
Landscape — plain
Figure group
Object Number: 1982.126
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1982.126

Artwork Description

Arthur Mathews led a group of progressive Californians who believed that fine art and design served the public good. After the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, he and his wife, Lucia, also a designer, led the effort to rebuild the city's fine public spaces. The pastoral scene in Spring Dance resembles civic-minded murals created for museums, libraries, and concert halls at the turn of the twentieth century. But Mathews had more on his mind than ancient Greece or Rome. His Arcadia is the luminous landscape of California, and the planes of color and the graceful postures of the dancers show the artist is looking across the Pacific to Japan. The ornate frame is a reproduction of the original. It repeats the colors in the painting, reflecting Mathews's commitment to designing furniture, art, and architecture to create an aesthetic whole.

Exhibition Label, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2006