Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967), Telegraph Music, 1949; watercolor and ink on paper, 11 5/8 x 17 5/8 inches; Burchfield Penney Art Center, Gift of Charles Rand Penney, 1994
Charles Burchfield, Journals, December 7, 1915
Monday, Dec 7, 2020
All my life I have yearned for some strange land of poetry, and imagination, which is always beyond my reach. I can see it most plainly, odd enough, when I have committed a sin & am filled with remorse.
Music sometimes suggests such a land to me. I was whistling a tune I used to whistle long before when in the primary grades and for the same reason. It came over me all at once how my life so far seems to have been but a repetition of this always unsated yearning.
Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, December 7, 1915