The Coconino sun., 1924-02-15
ARTIST BURGDORFF'S
PICTURES BACK EAST
ADVERTISE FLAGSTAFF


Ferdinand Burgdorff's Cleveland
friends have never seen such a. DEM
onstration, in his old home city, as
he is making in the Korner & Wood
galleries, 737 Euclid avenue, Cleve-
land, of his mastery of landscape
painting Not quite thirty pictures,
all done in Arizona, afford opportun-
ity for memorable display of the
possibilities of rich coloring, wide OPP
en- spaces, tumbled and quilted rocks,
trees clinging to the edge of a cam
yon, desert vegetation and high clouds
in the spacious skies of the semi-arid
southwest.
The range in subjects is wider than
might be inferred from the fact that
all of the pictures were painted in one
state, indeed in one part of that single
state. Arizona is very big, equal in
area to near three states like Ohio,
and its contrasts in altitude, config-
uration of the surface, rainfall, veg.
citation and atmosphere are often
sharp and extremely impressive with
in relatively small corner of the
state.
Burgdorff has chosen scenes which
are 200 miles apart or more, in their
greatest range on the map, and they
present wider difference than such
distances would imply in many parts
of the country In the high, well-wa-
tered district not far from Flagstaff
he has caught such blue in the sky,
such soft white in the clouds, such
greens in the grass and the foliage
as we know in Ohio, and there he
found oaks red in autumn with much
the same splendor which makes them
flame in the fall in this part of Amer
lea. But the lofty San Francisco
mountains were close by, as distances
go in that region, and the Grand
Canyon of the Colorado, some fifty
miles north, gave him wholly diff
ferent glories to record in his glowing
pictures.
There the riot of color in the stu
pendous chasm through which the
river hurls itself on its tortuous way
to the sea afforded opportunity to
display this young artists mastery of
pigments adequate, as far as paint
may be, to picturing the vast splashes
of reds and yellows, blues and grays
and other hues, which make the spec
tator marvel and the artist despair of
doing justice to nature, in such a
wonderland.
Here Burgdorff has found inspira-
ton for larger paintings that he has
ever before shown in Cleveland, one
in particular, being expanded to pro-
portions suitable for a magnificent
outlook over the Grand Canyon with
all trees, on the very rim of the
abyss, pointing up steadfastly to the
bright sky above this old playground
of titanic forces. In another and diff
ferent part of Arizona he has let the
great, white clouds carry his fancy
and his art out over a wide, empty
plain, with little desert vegetation
here and there, but chiefly notable for
the light that .glorifies it, and the high
arch of the sky overhead.
In contrast with these big paintings
there are many small enough for a
room of modest dimensions and init
mate enough in their conception and
their spirit to be wholly delightful to
live with and depend upon, day after
day. Some might almost have been
done in Ohio, after careful and pa
.tient searching for such views. And
again there is touch OF the old In
dian life of Arizona only in incident,
however, to the landscape which made
its setting.
Trees and plains, clouds and can
yons, sunsets and rainbow, rain
streaming down in long, dark fingers
in one of the infrequent storms that
leave much of the wide sweep of earth
and sky clear and bright-such
glimpses of nature in land where
the works of man hardly disturb the
long calm of regions which today are
much as they were thousand years
ago, makes this exhibition as rich in
novel subjects as it is in mastery OF
form and color.
The Burgdorff paintings will re-
main in the Korner & Wood galleries
through this week and next week, the
exhibition closing Feb. 16.-Cleveland
(Ohio) Exchange.