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Accession #	31.276
Artist	Arthur B. Davies
Title	Homage to the Ocean
Date	ca. 1908
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	28 1/16 x 23 1/8 in. (71.3 x 58.8 cm)
Signed	Signed lower left: "A.B. Davies"
Credit Line	Bequest of Lillie P. Bliss
Location	Visible Storage: Case 15, Screen I (Paintings)

Curatorial Remarks:

The dancelike positions of the three nude women in this fanciful landscape recall the choreography of the famed Isadora Duncan, who had just returned to the United States in 1908 to promote her innovative dance movements, based on a free-form style that she attributed to the ancient Greeks. The painting most likely grew out of Davies' familiarity with Duncan's theory that the essence of dance technique rested in natural breathing paralleling the rhythms of the ocean tides--hence the painting's title. In Davies' hands this subject takes on a curious mixture of spirituality, academicism, and modernity that testifies to the eclecticism of his art.