The Interurban Line
Charles Burchfield
American, 1893–1967
1920
A watercolor and pencil on paper street scene in which Charles Burchfield records an interurban rail line threading through a snowbound town, aiming to convey the atmosphere and everyday rhythms of early twentieth‑century life.
You notice first the broad, muted washes of snow and sky and the strong, dark silhouettes of buildings, sleighs, and carriages that march toward a distant, foggy vanishing point, giving the street a hushed, rhythmic quality.
The painting shows how American artists used watercolor to translate urban and regional experience into mood, capturing the transition between older modes of transport and the spread of interurban electric lines in a modernizing landscape.
Medium
Watercolor and pencil on paper
Dimensions
14 3/4 x 20 3/4" (37.5 x 52.7 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (by exchange)
Accession
4.1936
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
