What ideas about art did Georgia O’Keeffe learn through Arthur Wesley Dow’s teaching?

Through the teachings of Arthur Wesley Dow, Georgia O’Keeffe moved away from the traditional, academic focus on imitative realism. Dow introduced her to the Modernist philosophy that an artist’s primary subject should be their own personal ideas and feelings.1

To visualize these internal expressions, Dow taught that artists should focus on the harmonious arrangement of three core elements:
* Line
* Colour
* Notan: A Japanese system for organizing light and dark masses12

By rejecting the act of mere imitation or copying, Dow encouraged O’Keeffe to view art as a process of personal expression founded on these structural principles. This approach provided a vital alternative to her previous training, rekindling her desire to work as a professional artist and ultimately guiding her toward the abstraction that would define her later career.123