DOI Heft:
Nr. 334 (March 1925)
DOI Artikel:M'Cormick, William B.: A small town in paint
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19984#0206
mceRiiACionAL
A SMALL TOWN IN PAINT
rHAT TRUTH IS One of
the least understood
things in this world as
well as one of the least com-
mon in daily intercourse is
a fact borne out by many
sententious sayings and epi-
grams in the pages of our literature. An atmos-
phere of much reading might be cast over this
article about a young American painter through
some superficial references to aphorisms concern-
ing truth hunted up for the occasion. But I will
content myself with pointing out that when Pilate
asked of Christ, "What is truth?" he demon-
strated that it was a moot question nineteen
hundred years ago; and the tale of an ambassador,
in an almost contemporary novel, who made a
remarkable success in his profession by always
telling the truth is cynical testimony to its rarity
nowadays.
It is this very rarity of truth which puzzles
most of us when we are faced with it. And because
the pictures of Charles Burchfield are chiefly con-
cerned with showing the truth about a certain
ugly little Ohio town named Salem, when he first
began exhibiting them the
work disturbed those who
saw it so much that many
of them were incapable of
forming a reasonable opinion
as to what it was all about.
Indeed one art writer con-
ceived the idea that Burchfield painted the pic-
tures he exhibited because he "hates Salem, Ohio,
and told the world about it in pictures" that
"were remorseless in their scathing irony and
quite overpoweringly convincing as works of art."
This particular writer has since been informed,
on the best possible authority, that Burchfield
does not hate Salem. But he holds fast to the
idea, nevertheless, mainly for the reason that
truth is always regarded as being a trifle old-
fashioned by the world's sophisticates.
Nothing possible could better illustrate the
impression Burchfield made on New York than
to say that after two exhibitions of the most
informal character in a little bookstore in that
city he became the subject of a touchingly ro-
mantic legend. He was, so the tale ran, a self-
taught artist who supported himself by working
Charles Birehfield has
sought the truth in his por-
trayal of Salem, Ohio, and
found art in its melancholy
William B. M'GORMIGK
four sixty-six
march 1925
A SMALL TOWN IN PAINT
rHAT TRUTH IS One of
the least understood
things in this world as
well as one of the least com-
mon in daily intercourse is
a fact borne out by many
sententious sayings and epi-
grams in the pages of our literature. An atmos-
phere of much reading might be cast over this
article about a young American painter through
some superficial references to aphorisms concern-
ing truth hunted up for the occasion. But I will
content myself with pointing out that when Pilate
asked of Christ, "What is truth?" he demon-
strated that it was a moot question nineteen
hundred years ago; and the tale of an ambassador,
in an almost contemporary novel, who made a
remarkable success in his profession by always
telling the truth is cynical testimony to its rarity
nowadays.
It is this very rarity of truth which puzzles
most of us when we are faced with it. And because
the pictures of Charles Burchfield are chiefly con-
cerned with showing the truth about a certain
ugly little Ohio town named Salem, when he first
began exhibiting them the
work disturbed those who
saw it so much that many
of them were incapable of
forming a reasonable opinion
as to what it was all about.
Indeed one art writer con-
ceived the idea that Burchfield painted the pic-
tures he exhibited because he "hates Salem, Ohio,
and told the world about it in pictures" that
"were remorseless in their scathing irony and
quite overpoweringly convincing as works of art."
This particular writer has since been informed,
on the best possible authority, that Burchfield
does not hate Salem. But he holds fast to the
idea, nevertheless, mainly for the reason that
truth is always regarded as being a trifle old-
fashioned by the world's sophisticates.
Nothing possible could better illustrate the
impression Burchfield made on New York than
to say that after two exhibitions of the most
informal character in a little bookstore in that
city he became the subject of a touchingly ro-
mantic legend. He was, so the tale ran, a self-
taught artist who supported himself by working
Charles Birehfield has
sought the truth in his por-
trayal of Salem, Ohio, and
found art in its melancholy
William B. M'GORMIGK
four sixty-six
march 1925