1986.118
From Clingman's Dome, No. 2
Artist
Charles Ephraim Burchfield
(Ashtabula Harbor, Ohio, 4/9/1893 - 1/10/1967, West Seneca, New York)
Title
From Clingman's Dome, No. 2
Creation Date
1915
Century
20th century
Dimensions
19 1/4 in. x 14 5/8 in. (48.9 cm x 37.2 cm)
Object Type
watercolor
Creation Place
North America, United States
Medium and Support
watercolor over graphite on off-white wove paper
Credit Line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John D. MacDonald
Copyright
This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s
Copyright Terms and Conditions.
Accession Number
1986.118
Throughout his career, Charles Burchfield infused his renderings of the natural world with rhapsodic fantasy and vibrational energy. Burchfield was still a student at the Cleveland School of Art when he painted this watercolor from atop Clingman’s Dome, the highest mountain in Tennessee. During this period of self-definition, the young artist recalled filling his sketchbooks with “hundreds and hundreds of studies of clouds, trees, fields, flowers and grasses, moonrises, sunsets and storms.” In this composition, Burchfield emphasizes a dramatic sky. Splashes of blue and gray define portions of the white paper into booming cloud formations. About his art, he later explained, “An artist must paint not what he sees in nature, but what is there. To do so he must invent symbols, which, if properly used, make his work seem even more real than what is in front of him.”