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Summer Paintings by Charles Burchfield

Burchfield painted so many summer scenes, I pretty much picked a dozen randomly for this post because they all are so good that it doesn’t matter which ones I choose. When I think of summer, I think of eating scallions in June, cucumbers in July, corn and tomatoes in August, pears and apples finally as summer gives way to fall. Come to think of it, there is never any food in a Burchfield painting, though the landscape feeds us, nature the nurture. When I think of summer, I also think of swimming. There is only fresh water to swim in in a Burchfield painting, never the beach and an endless ocean. We will reach the bank in Burchfield’s water and we can drink it too, rivers warm with hovering insects, dragonflies over the surface in the palpable heat, katydids in the shadows of the electric branches along the stream. Everything breathes.

 

Sun Glitter 1945

 

Butterfly and Poppies 1950-66

 

Moth and Thunderclap 1961

 

Passing Shower in June 1917

 

Fantasy of Heat 1952-58

 

Summer Afternoon 1917-48

 

Road in Sunlight and Shadow, August 1936

 

Raindrops, Benford Glens, Blue Vista 1916

 

Moon Through Young Sunflower 1916

 

Midsummer Caprice 1945

 

Insect Chorus 1917

 

Song of the Tree Cricket 1959-60

 

The Sphinx and the Milky Way 1946

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