Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

settle over the town; a town in the grip of a soul-less industrialism, that choked human life with a complete callousness.; The band wailing out its dismal discords seemed to be the apotheosis of the town’s life. The feeling that somewhere there is something better may exist in the minds of some – tho (sic) what it is, or where it is, is unknown. The youth of the town congregate on street corners; lean apathetically against the buildings, unable to summon the ambition to seek whatever meager night-adventures the town might afford.; The great square false-front stores with their black hollow interiors enclosed by sultry walls; hot sticky bed-rooms where are enacted dull tragedies or quasi-comedies; waves of rust-flavored air from off the rail-road tracks coming in the windows – That persistent wailing music only accentuating the cavernous void of night, the hideous aimless night, the terrible endlessness of life-