Hartford, Connecticut; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; the San Diego Museum of Art; the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, California; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; Columbia University, New York; Ipswich Historical Society; Museum of the American Arts and Crafts Movement; and many other public and private collection. Ideas on teaching art His ideas were quite revolutionary for the period; Dow taught that rather than copying nature, individuals should create art through elements of the composition, such as line, mass, and color. He wanted leaders of the public to see art is a living force for all in everyday life, not as a sort of traditional ornament for the few. Dow suggested that the American lack of interest in art would improve if art was presented as a means of self-expression. He wanted people to be able to include personal experience in creating art. His ideas on art were published in his 1899 book Composition: A Series of Exercises in Art Structure for the Use of Students and Teachers. The following extracts are from the prefatory chapter "Beginnings" to the second edition of this book (1912): Composition ... expresses the idea upon which the method here presented is founded - the "putting together" of lines, masses and colors to make a harmony. ... Composition, building up of harmony, is the fundamental process in all the fine arts. ... A natural method is of exercises in progressive order, first building up very simple harmonies ... Such a method of study includes all kinds of drawing, design and painting. It offers a means of training for the creative artist, the teacher or one who studies art for the sake of culture. Bibliography Works by Dow References External links Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. Arthur Wesley Dow and American Arts & Crafts, March 10 through June 18, 2000. Dow Papers Online at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art Arthur Wesley Marsh Creek an example of Dow's art Online exhibition of Arthur Dow's art Two Red Roses Foundation 1857 births 1922 deaths Art Students League of New York faculty Académie Julian alumni Pont-Aven painters 19th-century American painters American male painters 20th-century American painters American landscape painters Columbia University faculty Teachers College, Columbia University faculty People from Ipswich, Massachusetts 20th-century American printmakers Woodcut designers 19th-century American male artists 20th-century American male artists