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©
Burchfield Penney Art Center
Charles Ephraim Burchfield

Orion in Winter

1962
Watercolor on Paper.
122 x 137 cm
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Inv. no.
482
(
1977.6
)
ROOM 46
Level 1
Permanent Collection
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 Postpop rooms Rodin room
30 18th and 19th Centuries. Transatlantic Relations 31 19th Century. American Landscape and Environmental Awareness 32 19th Century. American Landscape and Urban Life 33 Recovering the ligth. Restoration of Waterloo Bridge, by André Derain 34 20th Century. Expressionist Landscapes 35 20th Century. Expressionist Portraits 36 20th Century. The Language of the Body 37 20th Century. Urban unrest 38 20th Century. Flowers 39 20th Century. Pioneers of abstraction 40 20th Century. Popular flavor 41 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition I 42 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition II 43 20th Century. Abstract Utopias 44 20th Century. Dada and Surrealism 45 20th Century. Interwar Realisms 46 20th Century. American Abstraction I 48 20th Century. Post-ward American Art 49 20th Century. Post-ward European Figurative Art 50 20th Century. Informalisms 51 20th Century. Homo Ludens 52 20th Century. Pop Art 53 Postpop rooms 54 Postpop rooms 55 Postpop rooms 56 Postpop rooms Rodin Exhibition room

On 17 November 1933 Charles Burchfield wrote in his diary, “The other night I lay awake, tortured by a multitude of thoughts; outside the sky was blanketed with soft strangely luminous clouds, in which now and then appeared ragged holes thru which glowed the deep indigo sky – black.” As may be inferred from both his writings and his paintings, Burchfield, who was well versed in astronomy, felt a special attraction for the sky and heavenly bodies — not only the sun and moon but also the Pleiades and certain constellations of stars, particularly Orion, which appears in winter.

Executed in 1962, Orion in Winter, a fantasy scene that may recall Van Gogh’s Starry Night, is an appealing nocturnal view in which the moon and stars shine through the darkness and illuminate the whiteness of the snowy landscape. In 1962, Burchfield stated that it was based on the countless sketches he had made in 1917, his “golden year, ” during his experiments with the visualisation of sounds. The gleam of the moon’s halo — the ring that can be glimpsed on certain nights owing to the effect of the refraction of sunlight — and Orion’s reddish halo crowning the composition stand out against the dimmer light of the other stars. The reflection of the moon and stars is also visible in the black waters of the stream located further into the background.

Paloma Alarcó

20th Centurys. XX - Realismos en NorteaméricaWork on paperWatercolorPaper
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Orion in Winter. Charles Ephraim Burchfield
Orion in Winter
Charles Ephraim Burchfield

©

Burchfield Penney Art Center

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Orion in Winter. Charles Ephraim Burchfield
Orion in Winter
Charles Ephraim Burchfield

©

Burchfield Penney Art Center

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