Featured Exhibition
Charles E. Burchfield: Pine Tree and Oriental Poppies
June 12-August 29, 2010
Opening celebration: Friday, June 11 from 5:30-7:30pm
Over time, one comes to realize that the majority of the paintings by Charles Burchfield are memories that have been triggered by an object or an event and then retold, especially later in life, with nostalgic reflection or theatrical drama. Pine Tree and Oriental Poppies (1955-60) is a beautiful rendering of weathered clapboard buildings enveloped by pine and beech trees that contrast with a stand of red Oriental poppies. Brilliant yellow sunlight pours down from the sky, reflects off leaves, and saturates the air throughout the scene. Golden yellow heat waves undulate above the poppy petals, between dark, slender tree trunks and in a small triangular pocket of air where the shed's roofline intersects the side of the house. Such bright colors typify a brief period in late May or early June when perennial poppies open in a showy display of huge, fragile petal cups surrounding black eyes that will transform into a distinctive pod encasing hundreds of miniature seeds. What a joyful moment to capture. The flowers, trees and sunlight overpower the modest, ash gray structures as if to say the earth will persevere while the imposed human mark will fade. The power of memory individualizes everyone, yet there are emotions we recognize in the memories of others. As the unconscious relinquishes both the joyous and the terrifying, we can appreciate not just the beautiful scene in Pine Tree and Oriental Poppies, but also the many associations that motivated Burchfield to paint it.
