Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

“North woods – have snowflakes falling more numerous at bottom – (Thoreau – Song of redwings “as if the last snowflakes of winter tinkled as they fell)”

During the last years of his life, Burchfield focused on paintings that depicted the physical and metaphoric progressions that occur from one season to the next. Similar hemlock-shaped apertures in Autumn to Winter (c. 1964-66) delineate portals to a mythic North Woods, Burchfield’s imaginary place that symbolized peace and spirituality. The portals planned for Winter to Spring reference red-winged blackbirds, whose rich song Thoreau described in 1852 as “liquid, bubbling, watery, almost like a tinkling fountain, in perfect harmony with the meadow. It oozes, trickles, tinkles, bubbles from his throat—bob-y-lee-e-e, and then a shrill, fine whistle.”  They are one of the first birds heard as spring arrives.

Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, July 26, 1914

            Afternoon calm & peaceful. A few whisps of clouds appear. Sunset the “yellow light” kind.  What a miracle that yellow light is coming as it does, well after the sun has dropped below the rim of the world. All things become saturated with yellow light, even our thoughts. And so I sit in the saffron air, climbing the heights. At times I read slowly from Thoreau’s Walden. I bless the chance that sent the book into my hands.