Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, May 6, 1935

A.M.  With Bertha & Arthur to Buffalo to Bank, & a little shopping– after which, to elevators. We are stopped by a train at the Lower Terrace. I looked at the great engine with delight, and I realized all at once the undoubted superiority of my method of using water-color. Only so can the real hard-boiled realism of such things be achieved.  I thought of X’s water-color of a locomotive — how puny it was, done as it is in the conventional manner. The relation between my water-colors and the traditional manner is the same as between Beethoven & the classicists.

I played the Opus 130 Quartet last night. In one part there is a peculiar effect in the bass viols — two notes alike, followed by a half-step higher note, very gruff and abrupt — What impelled Beethoven to do it? He was following an impulse, and he put it down, even tho it had no excuse as ordinary music. I have done it too in my best things; I do not yield to the impulse often enough. Only so, is real art created.

Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, May 6, 1935