Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

May 3 – 12 –A trip to Cleveland & Oberlin. To Oberlin on my wheel – Oberlin with its gothic elm-lined streets, of tremendous calm, and vast twilights – it has the quaintness of 1870 about it – It seems strange that on such a trip of varied impressions there seems so little to record; but I have experienced more tonight in simply sitting here in my chair —; However, I heard the Cleveland Orchestra in the College Auditorium —For the first time I heard Dvorak’s Fifth Symphony in it’s (sic) entirety – It was overwhelmingly beautiful —; I made sketches (in pencil) of all sorts of buildings —2) ; ; ; ; May 13, 1921 —; A warm day in May —; Memories: a little hill rank with new long grass, and dandelion seed-heads all steaming in the boiling sunlight. The smell of “cooking” plants is mingled with the rich odor of manure from some barnyard. The heavy intoxicating scent of hawthorne deadens the senses – the drowsy hum of bees – all the power of Eternity pours down out of the Zenith.