Word: twachtman
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John Henry Twachtman began his artistic career painting milkmaids and ruined castles on window shades. By the time of his death in 1902, at the age of 49, he had one of the most unshaded visions in U.S. painting. Twachtman observed nature directly, capturing its twinkling textures in a low key as delicately as Debussy études...
...Twachtman, who studied in Munich and Paris, returned to relative obscurity in the U.S., averaged only $500 a painting. To raise his family, Twachtman had to paint yards of sky on the cyclorama of the Battle of Gettysburg in Chicago, sketch for Scribner's magazine, and teach. It left a bitter taste. He told students: "You are studying art here now, and some of you will become painters, and a few of you will do distinguished work, and then the American public will turn you down for second-and third-rate French painters...
Last week Twachtman received his greatest recognition so far. In his native city of Cincinnati, the art museum opened a retrospective of 134 of his works. Twachtman had none of the dramatics of Whistler, the figurative poise of Mary Cassatt, or the cheerfulness of Childe Hassam. But the show establish es him as a top-rate U.S. impressionist...
From the eddying hues of his scenes done in Yellowstone Park to the evanescent brush strokes of the glades near his Cos Cob, Conn., farm, there is more quiet transparency than passion. Twachtman collected Chinese paintings, and their gentle influence shows. His scenes (see color page) are stripped down to Mondrianesque simplicity yet they stand at symphonic distance from the Dutch abstractionist's boogie-woogie colors. Twachtman's task was to portray tranquillity in nature almost at her vanishing point...
...John Twachtman (1853-1902) began his career in a Cincinnati window shade factory, painting decorations. Making his way to Europe for study, he gradually worked deeper into the spirit of impressionism than any other American. Twachtman saw that air itself has color. Nature was to him a prim Salome who kept on all her seven veils. Deftly, delicately, with more tact than passion, he painted her veiled in atmosphere. His Fishing Boats at Gloucester demonstrates Twachtman's genius for evanescent things...