Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

Apple Orchard was painted in 1920 from Egypt Road, near Trotter’s Swamp, east of Salem, Ohio. Burchfield called the area the Bottoms, a marshy lowland near Post’s Woods that was a favorite wandering place. In later years, he described the watercolor as representative of a passing stylistic phase, an intermediary between the retrospective imagery of the late 1910s and his development through the 1920s. At times, Burchfield’s described trees in sacred language, but here, as elsewhere, he gave the tree human characteristics. He sought to express the contrasts between old and new or decay and rebirth associated with spring.