In 1912, Charles Burchfield began his studies at the Cleveland School of Art. Upon graduation in 1916, he moved to New York, where he received a scholarship to the National Academy of Design. In 1917, at the age of twenty-four, he returned to Salem, Ohio, and experienced what he would later call his "golden year," during which his observations of nature evolved into a more stylized, abstract mode punctuated with symbolic representations. Early Spring was executed during this watershed year in his career. Indeed, Burchfield was so energized in 1917 that at times he produced watercolors at a rate of two or three a week. It was in this year that he began to fully develop his philosophy of incorporating whimsical representations of nature to evoke a deeper spiritual meaning. As seen in the present work, Burchfield's technique of expressing movement, and even sound, allows the viewer to imagine the rustling of branches and the sound of the flowing stream.