Charles Burchfield
Night Scene
1935
Not on view
Date
1935
Classification
Drawings
Medium
Transparent and opaque watercolor, pastel, and charcoal on paper
Dimensions
Sheet: 16 7/8 × 26 7/8in. (42.9 × 68.3 cm)
Accession number
77.117
Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Charles Simon
Rights and reproductions
Reproduced with permission from the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation and the Burchfield Penney Art Center.
Following in a long tradition of American painters who used their art to celebrate the majesty and grandeur of the national landscape, Charles Burchfield imbued his images of the natural world with a sense of spirituality and mystery. In Night Scene, the central subject is the sky, made dramatic through the exaggerated contrast of the dark clouds and vibrant moonlight. The bright, radiating circles of light that punctuate the composition suggest disembodied eyes or perhaps fireflies. Here, as in all of Burchfield’s work, the varying effects of light, atmosphere, weather, and time of day—which the artist methodically recorded—are not simply empirical details but rather are vehicles for conveying a range of moods and emotions.
