Charles Burchfield, January 3-10, 1942

We are faced with a situation we, as a nation, cannot avoid, either with honor or with safety, and we have to see it thru, but it is all depressing to me, and keeps me from doing my work.  Having thought it out, and taken others’ advice, it seems my best service aside from paying taxes  & buying bonds , my best service so far, will be to go on painting as before. But it is difficult to achieve the detachment necessary to good painting. To record—or try to express the disaster that has overtaken the world seems futile, and of no service. In a similar period Beethoven gave us his great symphonies.—Sibelius wrote his Fifth—It is up to the artist to take the long-range view, and create for peace. It is hard—but I must somehow pull myself out of this slough.

Charles Burchfield, January 3-10, 1942