THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Wednesday, August 21, 2019 |A
Charles E. Burchfield’s ‘Clearing Sky’ (July 13, 1917), above; ‘View From Our Front
Porch at Salem, Ohio’ (May 23, 1917), right; ‘February Dusk’ (February 15, 1918),
below; and ‘Oncoming Spring’ (1954), top; Burchfield in his studio c. 1942, center
BURCHFIELD PENNEY ART CENTER (5)Buffalo, N.Y.
WEATHER FORECASTERScalled
for rain and snow one day in 1954
when Charles E. Burchfield set
out to paint in a favorite place in
western New York that he called
the “Big Woods.” Nonetheless,
Burchfield (1893-1967) gleefully
packed his watercolors, charcoal,
paper and portable easel, intent
on capturing “the clashing of
spring and winter in the woods,
sunlight and wind penetrating the
deep gloom of winter.” He thrilled
to the authenticity of being pres-
ent in the storm while he worked.
The painting he made that day,
“Oncoming Spring” (1954), more
than any other work on view, suc-
cessfully encapsulates the theme
of “Charles E. Burchfield: Transi-
tions,” the Burchfield Penney Art
Center’s current exhibition.
Burchfield had long harbored the
idea of creating single artworks
that would show the passage of
time, with its changes in nature,
sound and light effects. In “On-
coming Spring,” viewers can al-
most hear the fierce wind whip-
ping through the trees, blowing
from west (on the left) to east,
bringing glints of sunlight in
oddly shaped yellow glimmers
through the darkened sky. The
background, much lighter than
the foreground, shows spring in-
evitably advancing from the dis-tance in the future, just as the
snow, slowly melting to reveal
brown earth, and the deep green
trees in the foreground signify
the still-cold present.
All his life, Burchfield was na-
ture’s bard, making dazzling, com-
plex watercolor landscapes thatusually teem with life. And yet
there’s something unsettling about
his work. His images, representa-
tional but incorporating abstrac-
tions, patterns and symbols, are
often imbued with an undertone of
menace or alienation. When his
work was last given national at-
tention in 2009-10—the artist Rob-
ert Gober curated the marvelous,
expansive “Heat Waves in a
Swamp: The Paintings of Charles
Burchfield,” which toured to three
cities—admiring critics labeled
Burchfield’s output sensual, vision-
ary and mystical but also spooky,
eerie, even a bit mad.
To that list of adjectives, “Tran-
sitions” rightly adds “ambitious.”
In this focused exhibit, curated by
Burchfield scholar Nancy S.
Weekly, Burchfield wants his art to
do something, not just be some-
thing. He hit on the idea of transi-
tions around 1915, after seeing Chi-
nese scrolls, and began to
experiment with “all-day sketches”
(several are here) of changing
weather conditions. “Untitled
[Sunburst]” (1916) is an early at-
tempt in watercolor. It reads from
left to right, starting with raysfrom a rising sun; the white light
grows richer and more golden as
the day progresses, hits an orange
zenith at sunset, then transitions
to light gray after the sun sinks.
Burchfield takes a nonlinear ap-
proach to the clash of seasons in
“View From Our Front Porch at Sa-
lem, Ohio” (1917), painted on May- At the painting’s center, the
sun blazes white, tinged with or-
ange, illuminating verdant trees.
But that day, a freak storm hit,
and Burchfield fills the fore-
ground—again, signifying the pres-
ent—with slashes of white rain
and dabs of snowflakes driven by
a strong wind ripping through the
tree leaves. A dark cloud threatens
to overshadow the sun and hints
at thunder. It’s a striking work,
very different from those his con-
temporaries were creating.
In the 1920s, Burchfield turned
more realistic, with what he
termed a “romantic” spirit. He re-
turned to his time-span idea only
occasionally until about 1943,
when he turned 50 and wasn’t sell-
ing much. Seeking inspiration,
Burchfield looked to his neat fold-
ers full of notes that chronicled his
career and started thinking. His
thoughts are visible in several
drawings made for two of his most
successful transitions paintings:
“The Four Seasons” (1949-60),
which is structured in four
planes—with winter in the fore-
ground and autumn in the far
background—and owned by the
Krannert Art Museum at the Uni-
versity of Illinois at Urbana-Cham-
paign, and “The Coming of Spring”
(1917-43), at the Metropolitan Mu-
seum of Art. Sadly, neither fin-
ished work is here.
But the span of those dates
shows how much Burchfield pon-
dered this idea, a point also re-
vealed in his raw drawings, which
sometimes include notes to him-
self. In one (c. 1964-66), for a
planned winter-to-spring image,
he writes: “North woods—have
snowflakes falling. More numer-
ous at the bottom. (Thoreau—
song of redwings” as of the last
snowflakes of winter tinkled as
they fall).”
Successful solo exhibitions go
beyond obvious visual pleasures
or provocations to reveal an art-
ist’s inventiveness, and “Transi-
tions” measures up on that score.
It doesn’t, however, quite jell
around its stated theme. A ro-
tunda space is filled with a se-
quence of works that straightfor-
wardly portray a season or
month. Another section is de-
voted to Burchfield’s attempts to
convey sound, with “Telegraph
Music” (1949) as a prime exam-
ple. In it, Burchfield limns the
wires linking telegraph poles as
broken, curvy lines to signal their
reverberations, while the cawing
of crows in the sky is amplified
via gray, bird-shaped clouds.
Still, this shortcoming is like a
misleading book title. “Transi-
tions” provides a fresh way to
view and appreciate the unique vi-
sion of an American master.
Ms. Dobrzynski writes about the
arts for the Journal and other
publications.Charles E. Burchfield: Transitions
Burchfield Penney Art Center,
through Dec. 1ART REVIEW
Charles E. Burchfield:
A Change of Seasons
The painter had a passion for creating single artworks that would show the passage of time
BYJUDITHH.DOBRZYNSKI
LIFE & ARTS