Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, April 11, 1946

To country below Boston (near NW of Springville [leave 219 at Hill Road to Springville, then by Moore Rd. to Genesee, turn left and then first right hand road.]

Shortly after entering on the Moore Rd. a pair of huge old maples impelled me to stop. The air of a wonderful cool tang – a little snow, recently fallen, in the shadows and at the base of tree trunks – I try to see a subject in the maples, but the light is not right – I wanted to get a huge tree between me & the sun, so as to bring out its blackness in a silhouette – There were some fine old dead hemlocks trunks here.

Shortly after turning right off the Genesee Road, I find two more huge maples in a wild spot. Here I parked determined to stay. A short reconnaissance revealed one of them, standing in a thick undergrowth of maple seedlings & young hemlocks, to be a tree of a powerful personality – the light was shortly going to be right, and so I decided to make a painting.

First I ate my lunch, sitting on a gnarled root near my intended subject, in the lee of a clump of hemlocks which protected me from the raw north wind. The sun was warm, and I enjoyed the interlude.

All afternoon on the maple tree painting. At the end, altho my mind was tired, I still felt physically fresh. My feet were cold from standing all afternoon in the wet sand of a small stream so I set out for a walk over a wide gently sloping hill, coming back to the car thru a dense woods, full of brambles and small maple saplings. The great Hawks –

To eat my supper, I drove a short distance south, then took the Concord Rd. westward, & park on the brow of the hill. (My lunches today consisted of fried chicken sandwiches left over from my birthday dinner).

The evening spent here is one of the finest and most beautiful I can remember ever having experienced. The bit of land on which I was, was part of a wide spreading plateau, which sloped downwards in all directions so that I seemed to be “on top of the world”, and all the land curved downwards on all sides, the allusion of the earth’s spherical shape was created.

To the south and the east were rolling hills, a beautiful dense blue in color; to the west, the distant hills were yellowed by the sun, while to the north, there were no hills visible at all beyond the edge of the plateau, so that it seemed like a “jumping off” place, and the feeling of vast north-ness was overpowering.

A great vague fan shaped mass of cloud mist, was spreading out over the western sky, with long streamers, that cut the declining sun up into several glowing segments –

After eating, I went over into the adjoining field, to the highest point & there watched the night come on. The moon, about 3/5 full, at first a cold white object, and looked exactly what it was, a ball lit up by the sun. As the light faded, it began to glow more yellow, and sent off into the air surrounded it a pale golden halation of light – By now the sun had disappeared, and the cloud streamers in the wake, turned to scarlet. It was curious that the color extended across the sky in but one direction, north, but went as far as the northeast. The east, south and southwest were black and colorless.

A SUNBOW

With the sinking of the sun below the horizon, the sunbow in the east became visible, very low at first and only slightly arching, but as the sun sank lower, it rose upward, and became more clearly, a part of a vast perfect circle, the shadow cast by the earth on the still sunlit atmosphere above the earth – It was awe-inspiring in its elemental vastness. Within the earth’s shadow, which was a deep luminous slate blue, already the night sky, appeared the first “stars” – a bright planet, and then “Spica” - long before any stars became visible in the rest of the sky – The dead grass in foreground lit up by the western glow.

A bitterly raw wind came out of the northeast. I determined to stay until I saw the North Star or Polaris. Before that Sirius & Capella came forth, and then Betelgeuse & the “Belt” of Orion, altho the sky in which they appeared was misty & still lit up by the afterglow.

I departed with regret, but such a moment dare not be prolonged to satiety –

Charles E. Burchfield, April 11, 1946