Charles Burchfield
Watch the video version of my essay here
I simply adore Charles Ephraim Burchfield.
Alas, nothing I have read on the American painter thus far has captured what it is about his work that I find so compelling — and so I’ve spent the better part of this weekend trying to formulate the words myself. While I doubt that I’ve found the language I feel has eluded these far more seasoned writers…perhaps what I was able to drum-up, can move the conversation a little closer toward explaining his magic. So let’s give it a go, eh?
A Quick Note…
First, I’d like to acknowledge Burchfield’s famously sprawling, illustrative paintings. They are intricate, lush, and vibrating with whimsy. I see these as a category in and of themselves — separate in many ways from the work that I plan on dissecting in this piece, which focus on describing real natural phenomena. I would be remiss however, if I did not at least include a nod to a few of the painter’s most iconic works in this vein.
While these works are unarguably dazzling, they are not where I think Burchfield remains unrivaled (i.e. Mary Blair). To me, Burchfield’s throne presides over reminiscences of shared moments in nature.
Scenes vs Moments
There are paintings of scenes; grand and private moments in the world, in which our only access becomes the retelling by the artist. Scrupulous details can make such scenes believed, but never relived by the viewer. Here, a kind of paradox rears its head; specificity & precision work to transport us to this one moment in space/time, yet each detail is an exact way in which we are removed- in which we cannot relate.
To better illustrate my point, I ask you to look at the painting below:
Other than the janky two-point perspective, I believe this scene. It is, in every way, its title: “Winter Scene in Brooklyn”. Yet, while the details sell me on this snapshot in time, they remove me.
Each layer of historic detail separates the scene from any I have experienced. The exactness of the configuration of clouds & trees remain so rigidly loyal to this one moment in colonial-era Brookyln. I like this painting…but it was created to only ‘exist’ in one place, in one time, forever.
So now, let’s look at a painting by Burchfield, of which Winter is also the subject.
This is not a scene, it is a moment. And it’s a moment that I know: when a shock of sunlight illuminates all the snow-powder that’d been kicked up in the air — the ghost of your movements. When, for a second, there is a halo of gold and stillness around the entirety of the world.
The piece is appropriately titled “Winter Sunburst”. It is so many winter sunbursts you’ve seen and have yet to see. The ones your children’s children’s children will understand and know.
Burchfield strips away ego and fussiness until only the pure, universal moment remains.
Humility in Form
Let’s turn our attention to the top 1/3 of this painting:
Here, the sun is a bright yellow circle, with its rays being modest lines of uniform width and distance apart. The effect the light has on the roof is a literal outline in the same yellow.
In the interest of both beefing-up my upcoming point, and avoiding the monotony of only studying one painting…let’s look at some others that employ similarly ‘crude’ descriptions.
So the sun is a four -pointed star, and a clearing in a storm is a squiggly-phoenix, why?
Because these are real moments lived and experienced. When the sun breaks through the trees, you squint. When the snow rushes around you, you brace yourself. Burchfield is the same, and he is very much humble enough to let us know this. If your eyes couldn’t have reasonably caught something, neither did his. He is not trying to impress you, he is trying to remember with you.
He humbly, and gracefully resolves to using crude forms when they are the truest to memory and human experience.
Life Before Art
It is Burchfield’s empathy, his humility, that shines. His willingness to tackle moments in nature so large that they cannot be a platform in which to show-off technical skill (at least, not in the traditional sense).
I suppose I wasn’t being entirely honest when I asserted that nothing I’d read on the painter had resonated with me. There is a quote from Burchfield’s friend and fellow painter, Edward Hopper that I think does a lovely job.
“The work of Charles Burchfield is most decidedly founded, not on art, but on life, and the life that he knows and loves best.”
I’d like to leave you with one final comparison, this time, in the business of very heavy rain. A wall of rain, you might say.
First, one by Thomas Cole. A technically beautiful painting in every right. I see the moss, the golden light on the valley, the gentle wisps of clouds turning into a ghastly storm…
And now, one by Charles Burchfield, where I can hear the rain.
