AN Archives: Charles Burchfield
Charles Burchfield was a pioneering American painter, whose vibrant watercolors of the natural and urban world have earned him lasting renown. His works are part of some 109 museum collections in America including institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum and MoMA — testament to his remarkable talent! The largest collection dedicated solely to Burchfield’s incredible journey is held at Buffalo’s own Burchfield Penney Arts Centre where visitors can explore journals as well as paintings that range from his much-loved landscapes to his cutting edge innovations.
Burchfield was featured in the May, 1942 issue of American Artist Magazine. Here are three takeaways from the article that reveal the secrets to his unique approach to watercolor.
1
Career. He started as a “Sunday Painter,” working on the weekends and during his lunch breaks. During this time, he held his first one-man show and his work was being collected by multiple museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and Whitney Museum. With this success, at age 35 he quit his day job and devoted his entire time to making art.
2
Influences. His work was highly influenced by music. Speaking of the influence of Moussorgy’s music on his work, he said ”They are a great stimulation to me. I feel that painting ought to be like that–not necessarily gloomy or tragic, but it ought to speak directly to us. The painter ought to paint directly the emotion he feels, translating a given object or scene without detours.”
3
Process. Burchfield’s approach to watercolor was unique among his contemporaries, using watercolor with a rather dry brush. He would labor over paintings, preferring to carry on with paintings that aren’t working rather than start over. To him, there was little difference between watercolor and oils, and while he would occasionally paint in oils, he preferred the immediacy and freedom that watercolor afforded him. Speaking of the two mediums, he sad “Basically, the only difference between oil and watercolor is one of vehicle. Obviously, dry-cake watercolor requires a certain method of application to paper; but tube watercolors are the same as tube oils, except that gum Arabic and glycerine are used with the pigments in place of oils or varnishes. Both are, in common practice, transferred to linen fibres, the one in the form of paper, the other as woven cloth. The fact that water is the thinning medium for watercolor, to my mind, makes it much easier to handle in all respects.”
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