Stars and Dews and Dreams of Night

c. 1927

Arthur B. Davies

Painter, American, 1862 - 1928

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This painting’s lyrical, rhythmic composition is echoed in its title, drawn from a line in "Atalanta in Calydon," Algernon Charles Swinburne’s 1865 poem about a virgin huntress in Greek mythology. Despite Arthur B. Davies’s allusion to a specific subject, like many of his works this scene of a female nude against a backdrop of dense, starlit vegetation is highly enigmatic. The figure’s delicate beauty, opalescent skin, and graceful, yet unusual, pose—she might be dancing, floating, or pausing to gaze at the flower near her foot—suggest an ethereal being rather than a real or mythological person. At least one contemporary critic writing for the Christian Science Monitor noted the painting’s mystifying qualities, leading him to describe Davies as the "'American poet painter' [who has] visions and dreams that we cannot always follow."

While depictions of women as otherworldly creatures were not uncommon in late 19th- and early 20th-century American painting, Stars and Dews and Dreams of Night stands apart from works by artists such as Thomas Wilmer Dewing and Abbott Handerson Thayer. It aligns more closely with the allegorical pastoral scenes of the French painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and the Italian Renaissance master Giorgione, whose works Davies admired. Among the many works in his own eclectic art collection was a small painting of Venus then attributed to Giorgione that may have provided direct inspiration for the present canvas. The famously reticent and eccentric Davies also was obsessed with attempting to depict the human body at the moment of inhalation, evidenced here in the figure’s uplifted chest and ribcage.

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Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  American Paintings, 1900–1945: Stars and Dews and Dreams of Night, c. 1927

This nearly square painting shows an industrial area with buildings, storage silos, a smokestack, and railroad tracks. A mound of brown dirt or other material is in shadow in the lower left corner of the painting. Next to the mound, railroad tracks extend diagonally from the lower center of the painting into the distance to our right. The tracks end at a white building with staggered gray rooflines to our right in the distance. A tall terracotta-red smokestack rises high beyond the white building, smoke pouring out of its top and blending into the clouds above. Just beyond the mound of dirt, piles of white material, perhaps in unseen bins, line the railroad track to our left and lead back to a row ten interconnected, coral-orange silos. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and it is lined with a row of long white and gray warehouses. The artist signed and dated the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “Sheeler 31.”

Scholarly Series:  American Paintings, 1900–1945

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Acquired from the artist by (Ferargil Gallery, New York); purchased 1928 by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1928

  • The Eleventh Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 28 October - 9 December 1928, no. 100.

1962

  • Arthur B. Davies (1862-1928): A Centennial Exhibition, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; Cincinnati Art Museum; City Art Museum of Saint Louis; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1962-1963, no. 39.

1972

  • Conservation in the Museum, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1972, unpublished checklist.

1976

  • Corcoran [The American Genuis], Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1976, no checklist.

1981

  • Dream Vision: The Work of Arthur B. Davies, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute, San Antonio; Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica; The Phillips Collection, Washington, 1981, unnumbered checklist.

1998

  • The Forty-Fifth Biennial: The Corcoran Collects, 1907–1998, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 17 July - 29 September 1998, unnumbered catalogue.

2004

  • Figuratively Speaking: The Human Form in American Art 1770-1950, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2004-2005, unpublished checklist.

2005

  • Encouraging American Genius: Master Paintings from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte; John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, 2005-2007, checklist no. 86.

2009

  • American Paintings from the Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 6 June - 18 October 2009, unpublished checklist.

Bibliography

n.d.

  • Corcoran Gallery of Art Archives, Special Collections Research Center, George Washington University Libraries, Washington, DC: correspondence between Robert Halsband and Hermann Warner Williams, Jr., 7 and 11 December 1962; RG2, Office of the Director records; Series 2, Minnigerode and Williams records, 1908-1968.

1928

  • Rainey, Ada. "Corcoran American Exhibition." The Washington Post (28 October 1928): Editorial and Society: 10.

  • Jewell, Edward Alden. "Eleventh Corcoran Exhibit and German Primitives." The New York Times (4 November 1928): 10: 12.

  • Rainey, Ada. "Exhibitions Engrossing Washington." The Washington Post (4 November 1928): Editorial and Society: 10.

  • "Corcoran Show." Christian Science Monitor (19 November 1928): 7.

1931

  • Davies, Virginia M. "The Known Works of Arthur B. Davies." In Royal Cortissoz, Arthur B. Davies. New York, 1931: 33.

1933

  • Poe, Vylla Wilson. "Beauty of Line Explained by Corcoran Director Minnigerode." The Washington Post (19 July 1933): 30, repro.

  • Corcoran Gallery of Art. Illustrated Handbook of Paintings, Sculpture, and Other Art Objects. Washington, 1933: 39, 42, repro.

1935

  • Wilson, Vylla Poe. "Fourteenth Biennial Exhibition Focuses Art World's Eyes on Corcoran Gallery Here [exh. review]." The Washington Post (3 March 1935): SA: 5.

1937

  • Index of Twentieth Century Artists. 4, no. 5 (February 1937): 398.

1947

  • Corcoran Gallery of Art. Handbook of the American Paintings in the Collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washington, 1947: 69.

1961

  • Ahlander, Leslie Judd. "Backbone of the Corcoran Gallery." The Washington Post Times Herald (25 June 1961): G: 6.

1963

  • "The Collection, The Ninety-second Annual Report." The Corcoran Gallery of Art Bulletin 13, no. 2 (May 1963): 7, 33.

1973

  • Phillips, Dorothy W. A Catalogue of the Collection of American Paintings in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Vol. 2: Painters born from 1850 to 1910. Washington, 1973: 51, repro.

1991

  • Falk, Peter Hastings, ed. The Biennial Exhibition Record of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1907-1967. Madison, Connecticut, 1991: 17, repro., 19, repro., 106.

1998

  • Lewis, Jo Ann. "The Corcoran Biennial: Delivery on Collection [exh. review]." Washington Post (19 July 1998): G:1, repro.

  • Dorsey, John. "Framing the Century: Corcoran Gallery Highlights the Best Works from Its Forty-four Biennials [exh. review]." Baltimore Sun (3 September 1998): F:3.

2005

  • "Curator's Choice: Hidden Treasures of American Painting." Forbes Collector 3, no. 3 (Marsh 2005): 4, repro.

2007

  • Bennett, Lennie. "The Coming of Age of American Art [exh. review]." St. Petersburg Times (18 February 2007): 9L.

2011

  • Roeder, Katherine. "Arthur B. Davies, Stars and Dews and Dreams of Night" In Corcoran Gallery of Art: American Paintings to 1945. Washington, 2011: 236-237, 281, repro.

Wikidata ID

Q46634437

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