Whistler may have influenced Dawson's artistic philosophy as well. In 1885, Whistler published his first book, Ten O'Clock Lecture, in which he asserted his belief that art needs no justification; it existed for and of itself.

The winter/spring of 1910 was a prolific and pivotal year for Manierre Dawson and for art history. It was the year that twenty-two-year-old Dawson emerged as the pioneer of abstract art. When the year began, Manierre retained a fundamental connection to the natural world (see House at Bridge, p. 206), but soon progressed to paintings completely abstract. Manierre combined his training as an engineer and his passion as an artist to execute non-representative works prior to Arthur Dove in America and Wassily Kandinsky in Munich, who are generally credited in the history books as the first abstract painters. These seven early abstractions completed in the first few months of 1910, all contained principles from Manierre's engineering studies. Arches, circles, grids, and lines, some in muted tones and others in vibrant reds, yellows, oranges, greens, and blues, reflected the invisible forces that underlay the perceptible surface.

However, naming a piece of art was always problematic for Manierre. He wanted the titles to reflect the emotions each piece evoked, but instead they often clouded the viewer's vision. Once titled, the typical viewer tried to see the representation alluded to in the abstraction's title rather than to feel the emotions aroused by the artistic piece.

He was once again frustrated by the scarcity of time to paint

Beginning with a portrait from a master artist as the "bone," Manierre applied a semi-cubist/geometrical style to create his own personal vision to make it "right." Similar to his abstractions of 1910, Manierre's reinterpretation of the great European masterpieces continued to reject conventional subject matter. His study of Cezanne, his focus of the underlying structure and lines of work, and his belief that emotions should take precedent over subject attracted him to complex compositions for his reinventions. Although he borrowed motifs from the old masters, he did not copy or imitate their style. Instead he used a process "of simplification; the elimination of extraneous details and the reduction of the original composition to its most essential components." Manierre used beautiful blends of pinks, greens, blues, oranges, and flesh tones to create what has been described as "artfully contrived" "visual puzzles."