Wooded ravines provided the perfect stage for the sights, sounds, and smells that Burchfield associated with the changing seasons. Autumn Leaves at Play illustrates iconic characteristics of fall. When he began the painting in 1950, Burchfield wrote:
I worked on a theme that came to me last month- that of a woodland stream, swollen by a heavy fall shower, carrying gay colored leaves as it tumbled down a ravine over rocks and rotting logs...