Red Sun reveals Dove's fascination with both the outward appearance and underlying mystery of nature. As in other works of this period, undulating lines and shapes of earth and sky serve as representations of the forces of nature, a theme that became most visible in Dove’s work during the 1930s. His interest in giving form to the mystical attributes of the environment was encouraged by fellow artists in the Stieglitz circle, but also influenced by his interest in theosophical writings of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which emphasized the correlations between natural forces and visual form. Although never a strong advocate of theosophy, Dove was probably interested in the idea that certain forms and colors could symbolize nature’s hidden energies.
The painting is dominated by a large simple red-orange sphere—the sun—in which a thin spiral line is painted. The vibrant red radiates throughout the painting, illuminating the sky where it meets the land and conveying the intensity of the sun’s heat and light at the end of the day. The spiral’s subtle circular motion alludes, perhaps, to the movement of the sun as it sets over a range of hills, shown as a large, dark, curving shape. Below the darkening sky thin wisps of clouds cross in front of the bright sphere; they bring to mind the edge of a dark curtain descending, turning day into night. Painted in tones of deep blues and grays, the hovering sky and clouds balance the sun’s brilliant glow, giving visual form to the moment between light and dark that occurs at sunset. At the lower edge of the canvas, alternating bands of red-orange and blue call to mind the furrowed fields of the land around Dove’s farm in upstate New York. Yet they, too, echo the interplay of colors present throughout the composition, creating a visual counterpoint that expresses nature’s balance in cycles of light and darkness.