Purple Vetch and Buttercups

Among the most visionary artists to express reverence for nature through paint, Charles Burchfield lived a quiet life outside of the artistic mainstream but nonetheless attracted admiration with his exquisite watercolors of meadows, forests, and the changing seasons. Like George Inness and author Henry David Thoreau, Burchfield concentrated in his work on speaking of the spiritual revelation, even ecstasy, evoked by nature. Based on the natural world, Burchfield's work approaches the fantastic, with visual devices meant to replicate bird and insect sounds, and halos pulsing from plants. In "Purple Vetch and Buttercups," the landscape is activated by rhythmic paint strokes, suggesting a radiant energy invisible to the human eye. Burchfield wrote that this work "was the first 'out-door' picture that I painted in almost two years...I could not have done it in the studio...If the golden archway suggests the entrance to Paradise to you, you would not be far off - In fact, I don't know how the beauty of Paradise could exceed the glory of this visual world of ours!" A native Ohioan, Burchfield moved to New York city in 1913, only to return home the next year. After his marriage, Burchfield move to Buffalo to work for a wallpaper company, while continuing to produce some of America's greatest modern watercolors. in addition to landscapes, Burchfield also painted grittier Depression-era scenes such as "End of the Day." (1940.3)