Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967), Eye of God in the Woods (Burchfield intended to change the title to Presence of God in a Woods in 1962), 1949-(1962); watercolor and charcoal on joined paper, 47 1/2 x 25 1/2 inches; Collection of the Vatican Museums, Vatican City; Image from the Burchfield Penney Art Center Archives
Charles Burchfield, Journals, May 19, 1929
Friday, May 24, 2019
I wish with all my being sometimes that there were a powerful Being who would reach a helping hand out to me—one whom I could come weeping as I did to my mother when I was a boy, confess all my baseness, and be forgiven.
Perhaps the trouble is in losing that fine healthy boyish belief in goodness & purity—I see myself as a by wandering out thru the fields and woods worshipping God in nature, filled with ecstasy of God’s creations, conscious that a great divine Being had created all these marvels for the delectation of man. Then there was a sacredness to a sun-topped cloud seen in my June Saturday rambles; to the first soft downy hepaticas that pushed up thru the dry leaves; to the glint of cold light on the windblown hayfields of late June—
Oh God—how to get back there! Can one, having destroyed one image, never create another?
Charles Burchfield, May 19, 1929