The Best Rainy Night Painting Ever- Charles Burchfield
Charles Burchfield, Night of the Equinox, watercolor, 40 1/8 x 52 1/8", 1917-55, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC. I was just looking at what has to be the wettest painting ever painted, Charles Burchfield's watercolor above. What caught my eye was the water gushing from the downspout on the side of the house and feeding a small lake where the yard used to be. I remember pulling on my rain boots as a six year old and happily splashing my way through just such suddenly appearing streams. I'll bet Burchfield had just such a reverie as he painted. In the detail just above he paints the puddle as a huge waterway, giving it as much personality as the mysterious shapes in the sky. Last year when the Burchfield Penney Art Center invited me to be their Artist In Residence for this year they suggested that I might travel out to Burchfield's childhood home in Salem, OH. There Burchfield came of age and there he made many of his e