A self-described romantic artist, Jim Dine has embraced the heart as a template through which he can explore relationships of color, texture, and composition. Dine’s dynamic repetition of a condensed visual vocabulary has redefined the once-common heart as a personal symbol for the artist and as a metaphor for the human individual in general. Jim Dine describes his “Hearts” with these words:
“The heart is mine and I use it as a template for all my emotions. It’s a landscape for everything. It’s like Indian classical music—based on something very simple but building to a complicated structure. Within that you can do anything in the world. And that’s how I feel about my hearts.”
