Artwork Page for White Violets and Coal Mine

Details / Information for White Violets and Coal Mine

White Violets and Coal Mine

1918

Charles Burchfield

(American, 1893–1967)
Culture
America
Medium
watercolor and gouache over graphite on wove paper
Measurements
Sheet: 58.8 x 54 cm (23 1/8 x 21 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
Hinman B. Hurlbut Collection 1937.3202
Catalogue raisonné
Straus 313; Trovato 442
Copyright
Reproduced with permission from the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
Not on view
Print
?

Did You Know?

Most of the mines around Burchfield's hometown, Salem, Ohio, were out of use and abandoned even in his own time.

Description

Around 1918, Charles Burchfield began to explore and draw deserted mines around his hometown, abandoned after their resources were depleted. Many of these works were made just before he was drafted into World War I, a time characterized by intense anxiety and depression. He saw a connection between these emotions and the mines he visited, which he described as having “dark and gloomy depths . . . a luring mysteriousness.” Here, he portrayed the cave as a seemingly infinite space, contrasting its shadowy interior with white violets blooming from cracks in the rocky landscape.

White Violets and Coal Mine

1918

Charles Burchfield

(American, 1893–1967)
America

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