Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

Charles Burchfield’s recreation of a haunting childhood memory of a wild, cacophonous evening storm dramatically balances abstract synesthetic motifs for lightning and thunder with a realistic, nearly life-sized cecropia moth in the foreground. While some scholars think Burchfield's depictions of primordial, apocalyptic storms may be linked to “Thunderstorm,” the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony; we know the artist was inspired by numerous musical compositions.  

In 1930, Burchfield associated Sibelius’s Second Symphony with the visual effects of a blizzard, in which “the wonder and mystery of nature” were reborn in “a flash of pink lightning and a clap of thunder.”  He wrote: “Its power & beauty overwhelms me ― what a magnificent genius is Sibelius ― All the torture of barrenness and indecision that this autumn assailed me are dissolved in this elemental music ― pictures and ideas pour in upon me ― my joy is almost too great to be borne.”

— Nancy Weekly, Burchfield Scholar