Impressionist John Twachtman is best known for his lyrical winter landscapes like the Hunter Museum's Snow Scene, c. 1890.

Twachtman painted many of these scenes on his farm near Greenwich, Connecticut. In a letter he wrote to his close friend, artist J. Alden Weir, in 1891, Twachtman spoke about his love of living in the country.

". . . I feel more and more contented with the isolation of country life. To be isolated is a fine thing and we are then nearer to nature. I can see now how necessary it is to live always in the country -- all seasons of the year."

Twachtman bought the house, and eventually the 17 acres surrounding it, around 1890, soon after he had been assured of a teaching post at the Art Student's League in New York City. He and his family lived there, with the artist commuting to his job in the city; until his premature death in 1902 at the age of 48.

Twachtman painted scenes of his house, the pool ringed with hemlocks or the waterfall at the mouth of the Horseneck Brook at different times of year from varying points of view for he was fascinated by the subtle changes he saw occurring over the change of the seasons. Twachtman dated very few of his works and so it is hard to precisely date his pieces even though his style changed subtly throughout his years in Connecticut.

Snow Scene is a fine example of his winter landscapes done at Greenwich. In the foreground a field of snow stretches back to the building (probably Twachtman's house or barn) in the distance. The snow has melted in some spots revealing the dark earth underneath. The faint bare bones of trees punctuate in the landscape.

The pale blues and grays of the painting tend to dissolve the separate elements of the scene into a delicate web of color. Twachtman created his muted palette not with a single color but with layers of rust, pearly gray and a variety of blues. For all the delicacy of the finished work, Twachtman actually painted quite thickly using many layers of paint and sometimes letting the dark background (or base coat) show throught. His subdued colors also enhance sense of stillness and loneliness of the scene, for Twachtman's landscapes, especially his winter scenes, are usually unpopulated.

Twachtman's style was influenced both by Impressionism and by the work of James McNeill Whistler (link). Twachtman, a major figure in American Impressionism, was a founding member of The Ten, a group of American artists who banded together in 1898 to exhibit their works. Like other Impressionists Twachtman was more concerned with creating an "impression" or glimpse of a scene rather than a detailed rendition. This suggestive style is readily seen in Snow Scene. And although other Impressionists dissolved the outlines of their objects in their paintings, Twachtman pushed this technique even further. His trees and houses seem to melt into the surrounding landscape.

Another, and earlier, influence on Twachtman was his admiration of the paintings of James McNeill Whistler. lf you compare Snow Scene with Whistler's Gray and Gold -- The Golden Bay (link) in the Hunter collection you will see that both paintings are dominated by a single color and because of these close color values the forms seem to merge into one another. And, although it is not apparent in these two Hunter works, both artists were fascinated by Japanese art and some of the composition eIements of Oriental art are found in their works.

In speaking of his fascination with winter, Twachtman said:

"We must have snow and lots of it, Never is nature more lovely than when it is snowing. Everything is so quiet and the whole earth seem(s) wrapped in a mantle . . . All nature is hushed to silence."

Twachtman created all of his paintings. even his winter scenes, out of doors, although he finished them in the studio. A student recalled that one winter morning a maid brought his breakfast to his room, but Twachtman didn't appear. "They found him standing outside in the snow, painting like mad, utterly forgetful of his breakfast, ordered but never eaten."

Twachtman's winter paintings are different from other snow scenes done in the nineteenth century. Earlier works, such as those done by Currier and Ives artist George Durrie, featured people frolicking in the winter. In contrast, Winslow Homer's few winter paintings emphasize the danger and foreboding of winter. Twachtman's winter landscapes were unique in their subdued, delicate colors and their air of utter solitude. In an interesting essay in the exhibition catalogue John Twachtman: Connecticut Landscapes,  Deborah Chotner suggests that Twachtman's quiet, almost meditative, snow scenes can be seen in the context of a variety of efforts by late nineteenth century writers and philosophers to find a way to ease the stress of the great changes people in this era faced. As some people turned to the promise of a peaceful life offered by Utopian communities or new quasi-religious sects, Chotner suggests, so Twachtman sought his respose in quiet winter landscapes.

In his Connecticut winter landscapes, Twachtman created a hushed and ethereal world unique in American art.