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Classroom Use of the Art Print

Charles Burchfield (American; 1893-1967). Night of the Equinox, 1917-55. Watercolor, brush and ink, gouache and charcoal on paper mounted an paperboard. Smithsonian American Art Museum. Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation. THINGS TO KNOW

The American watercolorist Charles Burchfield was born in 1893 in Ashtabula Harbor, Ohio. After graduating from high school (he was the class valedictorian), he enlisted in the army where he worked as a camouflage painter. After the war he moved to Cleveland and enrolled in art school. In the early 1920s Burchfield worked as a wallpaper designer and painted in his spare time, often choosing to depict scenes of the streets, harbors and countryside around his new town, Buffalo, N.Y.

In 1929, after a prominent New York art dealer began representing him, Burchfield quit his job and devoted himself to art on a full- time basis. “Best known for his romantic, often fantastic depictions of nature, Burchfield developed a unique style of watercolor painting that reflected distinctly American subjects and his profound respect for nature.” (Quote excerpted from the Burchfield- Penny Art Center Web site www.burchfield-penney.org.)

Early in his career Burchfield would sketch an image in pencil and then lay in the pigment. In the early 1920s, he abandoned the pencil in favor of paint only. He also began using the dry-brush method, a technique in which a minimum amount of water is placed on the brush, producing a greater intensity and depth of color. Burchfield would often layer colors until he achieved the desired effect.

Art historians have noted that Burchfield’s career can be organized into three phases. In the first phase (1920s) he focused on mystical, ethereal views of nature, the cosmos and the effects of weather. Throughout the 1930s and early ‘40s, he trained his eye and brush on scenes of the American small town, factories and industrial subjects. In the mid-1940s, he returned to the study of nature and would often rework earlier compositions by adding paper to the borders and adding additional content Burchfield revered the natural world and created a set of symbols to represent natural effects, such as wind, heat and light.

Burchfield was a friend and contemporary of the American realist painter, Edward Hopper. Of his friend, Hopper once said, “The work of Charles Burchfield is most decidedly founded, not on art, but on life, and the life that he knows and loves best.”

Along with fellow American artists Winslow Homer, Maurice Prendergast and Andrew Wyeth, Charles Burchfield is considered a master of the watercolor medium.

The following Internet sites contain helpful information and lesson content on the life and art of Charles Burchfield:

• www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/burchfield_charles.html. This image base offers a large selection of works by Charles Burchfield.

• www. aaa.si. edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/ burchf59.htm. This page from the Smithsonian Institution’s American Art Museum contains a text version of an interview with Charles Burchfield.

• www.burchfield-penney.org. This is the site of the Burchfield- Penney Art Center, located in Buffalo, N.Y.

• www.butlerart.com/pc_book/pages/ charles_ephraim_burchfield_1893.htm. This essay, from the Butler Museum of Art Web site, is an excellent introduction to the artist’s life, work and philosophy about art and nature.

THINGS TO DO

• Primary. In the early years of his career, Charles Burchfield would begin a watercolor painting by first drawing the image in pencil followed by layering pigment over the sketch. Eventually he gave up the sketching phase in favor of drawing directly with paint.

Before beginning this activity, give a demonstration in how to use and apply watercolor paint. After the demonstration give students an opportunity to create two small watercolor paintings using both methods. Have students use a pencil to draw a simple weather image, such as a rainy, snowy or windy day. Give them watercolors to lay in color.

The following day, give students time to recreate the scene, but this time painting the composition directly onto the paper. Conduct a critique where students can show both compositions and discuss the strengths of each.

For an excellent primary level activity inspired by this month’s Art Print, Night of the Equinox, go the following Web page from the Smithsonian Institution: americanart.si.edu/ education/cappy/ 11cactivity2.html.

• Elementary. In this activity, students have the opportunity to experiment with the dry-brush watercolor technique favored by Charles Burchfield. Demonstrate how to load the brush with a small amount of water before placing it into the pigment. Show students how the intensity of the colors varies with changes in the amount of water placed onto the brush.

Model how layering of the color can produce deeper color and depth, a technique often practiced by Burchfield. Allow students to practice with this technique before challenging them to create a weather-related watercolor painting. (Hint Give each student a few pieces of paper towel to blot excess water or pigment from the brush before applying color to paper.)

• Middle School. In the last phase of his career Burchfield returned to the transcendental landscapes that characterize his early work. In this later phase, the artist would often pull a composition made years earlier and rework it by carefully adding additional paper to the borders. He would then add additional content to the piece, thereby creating a new work of art. This month’s Art Print Night of the Equinox, is an example of such a reworked painting.

Have students choose a work made earlier in the year. Challenge them to re-envision the piece as Burchfield re-envisioned and reconstructed many of his early watercolors. (Before students begin, give them a choice to rework a photocopied image of their piece or to work directly with the original.)

• High School. Charles Burchfield once said, “An artist must paint not what he sees in nature, but what is there. To do so he must invent symbols, which, if properly used, make his work seem even more real than what is in front of him.”

Symbols held great importance to the artist, who created a set of symbols to represent natural forces (wind, heat), and also to represent human emotions, such as fear and anger. Give students time to study many examples of Burchfield’s work, identifying some of the common symbols he used to represent the weather. Based on these symbols and others that students will create themselves, challenge them to compose a watercolor painting that depicts weather and that incorporates both realistic and symbolic imagery.-CC.

© 2008 YellowBrix, Inc.

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