1920
graphite on paper
11 x 17 inches
Burchfield Penney Art Center, Charles E. Burchfield Foundation Archives, Gift of the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation, 2006
Notations:
Void of blue vaporous gas from Brick kilns (upper left)
Along the right side:
All kinds of tawny colors, hot grays fill the heavy sky — there are no clouds but the sun does not shine thru very strongly. Cicadas fill the air with song. Heat waves rise from the ground — the whole is a symphony of heat, ghastly odors, and hot brilliant light — deathly quiet.
The void of the life of this valley is awful to contemplate. Yet it is gripping.
The raw shattered trees sparsely covering the harsh clay-ey hills — raw green & pink yellow — smoke blackened in places
[Life at Irondale is hideously raw, crude & primitive — It is splendid in its very brutality. Powerful & awe-inspiring—]