Spring Dance

Arthur Frank Mathews, ca. 1917

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Artist: Arthur Frank Mathews (American, 1860–1945)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 51 7/8 x 47 5/8 in. (131.7 x 121.0 cm.)
Museum: Smithsonian Institution
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

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