Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967), Church Bells Ringing, Rainy Winter Night, 1917; watercolor and gouache over graphite, 30 3/8 x 19 5/8 inches; Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Louise M. Dunn in memory of Henry G. Keller 1949.544
The church bells sound tonight as they did in childhood.
A vast lonely evening, with a tremendous overpowering melancholy; the child has vague remembrances of the terror of the Sunday School lesson of the morning in which fearful stress is put on the avenging wrath of God –
There is the unnatural constraint of Sunday over the town. For the time the child forgets where his mother is; there came to him unutterable forebodings of times when all protecting friends will be gone; the cricket chorus comes from black depths; the air opens up into a vast cavern, which the mournful bell swells larger and larger; the sky is about to fall he is facing a vast valley –
Charles E. Burchfield, October 3, 1920