Charles Wright on Charles Burchfield

Two of my favorite landscape painters are Paul Cézanne and Charles Burchfield. I like Cézanne because of the way he painted – those hooks and dabs of color, everything almost individual until you step back and it all coalesces. And I like Burchfield because of what he painted. What he saw in the landscape, and what he saw coming out of the landscape. Or what was seeping through behind it. You could argue, I suppose, that he imposed upon the landscape, but I would say that he saw differently and more accurately and that in more or less the same way as Cézanne’s dabs and slants came together to make a whole. What Burchfield saw and intuited solidified into what we see – the amazing, mysterious, and mystic works that he left us. If I were a painter – which of course I always wanted to be – I would try to paint like Charles Burchfield. To see behind and beyond the beauty in front of me, and to see the double beauty and bring it forward as he did.

 From Charles Wright's remarks on receiving the Charles Burchfield Award on May 27, 2015