Backyards in Winter (Castoff Christmas Tree)
Charles Burchfield (American, 1893–1967)
January 1917
- Medium
- watercolor, gouache, blue and orange crayons, and black wash on wove paper
- Classification
- Drawing
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 36.3 x 45.8 cm (14 5/16 x 18 1/16 in.)
- Culture
- America
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Drawings
- Credit line
- Anonymous gift in memory of Henry G. Keller
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
In this drawing, the gray and brown tones of a row of houses are interrupted by the bright green and yellow of a discarded Christmas tree. The work was created in the same year as Church Bells Ringing, where a Christmas tree visible through a window was meant to contrast the work’s foreboding mood. This earlier image similarly suggests Burchfield’s passion for his favorite holiday, which he saw as a symbol of goodness.
