Night in Malta

Manierre Dawson was one of the first American artists to create abstract artworks. This painting might be a fully non-representational composition, or it might be abstracted from a landscape view. It emphasizes the flatness of the two-dimensional picture plane rather than the illusionistic depth of a more traditional landscape. The composition never fully resolves into a recognizable view, largely because of the all-over application of different shades of green. A painting from the same year called Malta, very similar in its size and color, and others like Wharf under Mountain (1912) and Blue Complex (1913), suggest the possibility that Dawson was composing variations on the same landscape theme.