Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

This drawing, the watercolor upon which it was based, and a later lithograph version all capture Burchfield's fascination with crows following a March afternoon walk in 1946. He wrote that the woods "had all the wildness & remoteness that the music of Sibelius evokes for me....a large flock of crows, with a great alarum & clatter, entered the woods and settled on a tree not far away. There was a savagery about their angry cawing as they settled into the tree, that was very thrilling, even spine chilling—"