THE THREE TREES

 CHARLES E. BURCHFIELD

The Three Trees, 1932-46, watercolor on paper, 36" x 60"

JOURNALS: May 2, 1949

In Salem-High Street-great open fields with gigantic trees, elms, buttonwoods and maples, with blue-jays flying about - 

Burchfield notes often in his journals that he was "near the Three Trees, sketching...

...when he heard that two of the trees had been felled by a tornado in 1925 he "was seized with a desire to recreate them in a picture".

The Three Trees (Salem, Ohio), Pen and Ink with wash over graphite

Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art

I really appreciate the continuous line that connects the three trees along the top of the "spreading branch canopy". It is such a direct way to express that things in nature are interconnected and also creates a movement, like a wave, or maybe a ripple of wind ruffling the leaves in a certain direction.

The way he drew in the sun embraced by the lower branches of the two trees on the left with clouds and rays of sunshine lighting up the landscape in the distance gives a context to the trees.

Chestnut Trees, (Near Little Beaver Creek, east of Salem, Ohio), 1920

Pen and ink wash & pencil

"Three chestnut trees, overlooking the valley of the Little Beaver. What glorious trees these vanished chestnuts were - with their shaggy deeply sculptured trunks, and waxy green luxuriant foliage, now truly myths of a bygone era."

Chestnut Trees, 1916, Gouache, watercolor and pencil on paper

FRAGONARD'S DRAWINGS OF TREES

 JEAN HONORÉ FRAGONARD

Foliage Study: Branches of a Chestnut Tree 1765

In October of 2016 we saw a show of Fragonard's landscape drawings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. I took many photos of his drawings of trees. He was such a master of observational drawing. About this drawing of a Chestnut: "This sheet records the branches of a Chestnut Tree heavy with leaves and nuts. The study was likely inspired by the instruction of Charles Joseph Natoire, director of the Académie de France in Rome, who emphasized the importance of directly observing nature. In Fragonard's studies of individual trees or masses of foliage he was less interested in rendering botanical accuracy than in capturing the effects of light and the textures of leaves with stylized strokes of red chalk." chalk. https://metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/655390

The simplicity of this sketch says it all. The light on the trees, the lines delineating the contour of clumps of leaves or the masses of the foliage and the big shape of the tree. Those gestural dark lines that are branches.

WHY DRAW A TREE

This post is the first in a series titled WHY DRAW A TREE. It is something that I have been thinking about for awhile and because I will be teaching two weekend classes in June where we will be drawing trees I have decided to do it now. The posts will feature work by artists, living and deceased, who have inspired my own drawings and paintings of trees over the past thirty years. I will focus on drawings in black and white but also include paintings. 

CYPRESSES, 1889, SAINT-REMY-DE-PROVENCE, FRANCE

VINCENT VAN GOGH

CYPRESSES, POLLARDED TREES, AND ROOTS

From 1888 to 1890 Van Gogh found solace or perhaps an identification with cypress trees. The cypress tree is a symbol of death and perhaps this was a reflection of his state of mind right before his own death in 1890. Regardless, these late drawings and paintings of the cypress tree are full of the life that all his work expresses with his variety of swirling lines animating the tree and the landscape surrounding it.  He was also very aware of the challenges of painting the landscape and in a letter to his brother Theo he wrote "-(The cypress) is the dark patch in a sun-drenched landscape, but it's one of the most difficult to hit off exactly that I can imagine."

POLLARD BIRCHES, 1884

pencil, pen and ink watercolor on paper

LANDSCAPE WITH PATH AND POLLARD BIRCHES, 1888

Pollarding trees is a common practice in much of Europe including his native Netherlands. He compared a row of pollarded trees to a "procession of orphan men". The Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom in his book Roads to Santiago, compares them to "...armies naked and unmoving, lined up as if for battle, marching into your dreams at night." The way their gnarled trunks lean into space give the feeling that they will uproot themselves and start walking into the landscape. Van Gogh loved these trees and they featured prominently in his drawings and paintings. 

TWO TREES

PINES ALONG A ROAD TO A HOUSE 

I love the gestural quality of these two drawings. It is as if you can feel the wind moving through the branches. The use of a few lines is enough to depict the ground the trees are growing in. 

TREE ROOTS, JULY 1890, AUVERS-SUR-OISE, FRANCE

This painting Tree Roots is thought to be the last piece he worked on the day he suffered a fatal gunshot wound. Van Gogh also made a drawing of tree roots when he lived in The Hague in 1882. In a letter to his brother Theo he wrote that he wanted it to "express something of life's struggle" and looking at it as "Frantically and fervently rooting itself, as it were, in the earth, and yet being half torn up by the storm."

"DRAWING IS AT THE ROOT OF EVERYTHING"

VINCENT VAN GOGH

 The Cantabrian Landscape

                            Friday, 9/10/21, Usil or Mogro Beach

During the fall of 2021, we spent several weeks exploring the coast of Cantabria

and the beaches of Santander.  Each cove had it's own unique character and offered many 

different views, plant life and rock formations to paint. 

The body of water is the Bay of Biscay,  where the Cantabrian Sea is located and is an arm of the 

Atlantic Ocean on the northern coast of Spain. 

The three scenes above are painted from Sardinero Beach in Santander.

 You can see  Mouro Island with it's lighthouse, the only thing on the island.

 I really like this rock formation.

I think it's a metamorphic rock called Schist.  

                            Tuesday, 9/14/21, Usgo Beach with limestone or rudist cliffs. 

                            These cliffs, and reefs, were built by mollusks called rudist clams. 

                     Monday, 10/4/21, view from the coastline below the Cabo Mayor Lighthouse

Thursday, 9/14/21, Usgo Beach

Sunday, 8/29/21, first day's impression of Sardinero from our window

I didn't have my easel with me so these are all small 4" x 8" studies.

Painting these watercolors is my way of learning about a new landscape

and becoming comfortable with my new surroundings. 

THE TREES IN MY CHILDHOOD YARD, or maybe why I've been drawn to paint trees.

I grew up in a house owned by gardeners who were not my parents.

We inherited all the trees in the small front yard, the side yards and the larger backyard.

They needed a lot of care, especially the fruit trees. 

The house was a small Cape Cod cottage. On the right side of the front walk was a large magnolia tree, on the left a dogwood. The house was surrounded by rhododendrons, azaleas and hydrangeas of varying bright colors. 

Around the house to the right were the fruit trees; pears and plums and in the middle of the backyard an impressively large Bing cherry tree. At least that is the way it exists in my childhood memory. This is the tree that I remember most because it bloomed every spring right outside my upstairs bedroom window and when it was warm enough to keep the windows open the smell of the blossoms filled the room. 

There were lilacs against the garage wall. A grape vine clung to an arbor over the walkway that led up to the side door into the kitchen. Lilies of the Valley were a ground cover on both sides of the walkway. 

Growing around the entire property was a tall privet hedge. Every other weekend my father would take out the electric trimmer and prune the hedge. My brother and I would rake up the clipping.s Whenever I see a hedge today I can hear the sound of that trimmer and smell 

the scent of the small leaves of the newly shorn hedge. 

"These trees are magnificent, but even more magnificent is the sublime and moving space between 

  them, as thought with their growth it too increased." R. M. Rilke

I moved and grew up in the space between these trees and I feel their presence and carry them with me. 

                                                   

PIPLANTRI

Over the past 20 years I have been making drawings and paintings

among hundreds of aspen trees in the forests near my home in SW Colorado. 

Last year I was invited to be the featured artist at the Ah Haa School for the Arts

New Year's Eve Fundraiser Gala. I had the entire gallery to fill with my paintings 

and with the poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer an opportunity to collaborate

on an installation created specifically for the event. 

Six years ago the residents of Piplantri in Rajasthan, India, started planting

111 trees for each girl child born. Shyam Sundar Paliwal, former village head,

started this initiative in memory of his daughter Kiran. 

To ensure the financial security of the child, parents and members of the community 

are responsible for the care of the trees and are required to contribute money

to an account for the girls' education. She is not allowed to marry until the age of 18.

I told Rosemerry about Piplantri, that I wanted to make 111 small drawings of the aspen trees 

and she immediately said, "Of course, I'll write 111 poems!" 

 A section of Piplantri, 111 mixed media works on paper and poems on recycled vintage papers

Snow on Aspens, India ink and gouache drawing

Piplantri works in progress in the studio

Me and Rosemerry on New Year's Eve 2019 at the Ah Haa School for the Arts in Telluride, CO!

Thank you Ah Haa School for this opportunity and a special Thank You to
Kris Kwasniewski for designing the installation and hanging each poem and painting! 

PAINTING THE MED

Twelve artists spent a week together last month at La Serranía in the foothills of the Tramuntana Mountains in Pollensa on the island of Mallorca. One afternoon was spent painting 

at Cala San Vinçens, a dramatic cove on the Mediterranean Sea. 

Here is a selection of the paintings we did, some close-ups of the waves on a slightly breezy day,

others include the rock formations that line the shore. The weather was just a bit cool due to the ocean breeze, but it was a beautiful day spent painting outside!