House on the S.E. Corner of Fourth and Vine Streets, Salem

Charles Ephraim Burchfield American

Not on view

In Burchfield's art, houses often assume anthropomorphis qualities and distinctive personalities. Rather than painting portraits of people, he created "portraits of individual houses designed to show just what sort of people lived in them." He then wrote in his journal: "A house is often more moody than nature . . . In the daytime they have an astonished look; at dusk they are evil; seem to brood over some crime . . . Each one is an individual." This view of his childhood home in Salem, Ohio, where he lived from 1898 to 1921, radiates an astonishing energy that seems to charge the sky and blackened trees outside.

House on the S.E. Corner of Fourth and Vine Streets, Salem, Charles Ephraim Burchfield (American, Ashtabula Harbor, Ohio 1893–1967 West Seneca, New York), Gouache and watercolor on paper, mounted on cardboard

Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

Open Access

As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.

API

Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API.