Sun and Rocks

brush and India ink, watercolor wash, crayon and conte crayon, 1950-53, monogrammed and dated lower left, matted and framed. 12 x 17"

Exhibited: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio. The Drawings of Charles E. Burchfield—An Exhibition Sponsored by The Print Club of Cleveland and The Cleveland Museum of Art, November 4-December 31, 1953. (catalogue, Leona E. Prasse, curator) #147

Kasmin Gallery, New York, New York, The Enormity of the Possible. September 7-October 28, 2017. https://www.kasmingallery.com/exhibitions/382-the-enormity-of-the-possible/

Sun and Rocks (1950-53) is a transcription of a much larger painting titled Sun and Rocks, dated 1918-50, now in the collection of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum in Buffalo, New York. Although simplified for scale, the small version retains all the essential elements of the composition, including the red wild ginger. Charles E. Burchfield occasionally created smaller versions of paintings, either for sale or so he and his wife, Bertha, could remember favorites.

Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

Sun and Rocks, 1918-50

Watercolor and gouache on joined paper mounted on board, 40 x 56 inches

(Enlarged from Song of the Peterbird, 1918, 26 x 19 inches)

Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, New York, Room of Contemporary Art Fund, 1953

RCA 53:4

In my opinion, Burchfield’s self-named “diamond sun” is a cross of light bursting from behind a black sun to represent the perfect alignment of the earth, moon, and sun in a full solar eclipse, paralleling nature, the artist, and God as they converge in artist’s imagination. The painting exemplifies Burchfield's romanticism as it merged with his later Christian beliefs. He once described his original intentions for the then-named Albright Art Gallery when they acquired the painting:  

An attempt to depict a scene of primeval times, in early spring, when conflicting forces of nature hold sway and seem to fill the earth with violence and chaos.  A great cliff, shaggy with ferns, juts up into the sky; from it, forced loose by the relentless process of erosion, huge boulders have tumbled down the hillside.  Among them, hemlocks, torn and twisted by the violence of wind and storm, have managed somehow to sustain life; here and there also, a few wild ginger plants have ventured forth.

            Shining from the deep blue cavernous sky, the spring sun—our great day-time star—floods the scene with brilliant light that will heal the wounds of the earth and bring forth new life.

            As an idea, this picture started in 1918 in the form of a smaller watercolor (about 26” x 20”).  At that time I was experiencing, for the first time, the joy of getting acquainted with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, which overwhelmed me with its elemental force and power. In particular, the third movement is more directly concerned with my work at that time. It seemed to me the expression of titans engaged in boisterous play; as though they might skip about from mountain to mountain and even at times hurl enormous chunks of rock at each other in sport to the accompaniment of thunder and wind. It was in such a mood that I tackled the subject of rocks and cliffs in early May of 1918.

(Charles E. Burchfield, “Recent Acquisitions, Sun and Rocks by Charles E. Burchfield,” Gallery Notes, XVIII, no. 2 (Jan. 1954): 24.)

Beginning in January 1955, Burchfield created Painting Indexes to document his work while preparing for his mid-career retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Many, but not all, paintings were illustrated with black and white photographs. He also created another Index for prints and drawings that were not illustrated. It documented important works created between 1915 and 1953. He may have started this cataloguing project in preparation for the Cleveland Museum of Art’s exhibition in 1953. Sun and Rocks was among the last entries, transcribed below:

Charles E. Burchfield, (Etchings - Woodcuts - Lithographs) and Drawings (1915-1953), Burchfield Penney Art Center, Charles E. Burchfield Archives, Gift of David Richter, 1977

We would like to thank Nancy Weekly, Burchfield Scholar at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, for her assistance with cataloguing this lot.