JOHN D. MORSE: We were speaking, Mr. Burchfield, of some of your favorite older painters, and I think we got to Van Gogh, although I believe the name you were searching for you didn't find.
CHARLES E. BURCHFIELD: Oh, yes, that was Giotto, the early Italian painter. And, of course, I admire Leonardo, Titian, Michelangelo, although Michelangelo seems like something a little more distant from me than some of the others. And then coming down in time, there's Van Gogh, Cezanne, and earlier than them the French painters Courbet, whose landscapes in particular I love very much, and Degas, and . . . .
Excerpt from John D. Morse’s Tape-Recorded Interview with Charles E. Burchfield, 3574 Clinton Street, West Seneca, New York, August 19, 1959