Hemlock Pool

Object Details

Artist: John Henry Twachtman, born Cincinnati, OH 1853-died Gloucester, MA 1902

Luce Center Label: John Twachtman painted this scene in all different seasons. He drew inspiration from his seventeen acres of land in Greenwich, Connecticut, and his paintings of the property express the emotional and spiritual comfort he found there. This image, likely made in autumn, shows a pond located behind his house at the bottom of a steep incline along the Horseneck Brook. Twachtman created many images of streams and brooks, and these ceaselessly moving bodies of water might have held a deeper significance for him. By the time Twachtman painted his Connecticut landscapes, American artists and intellectuals had been interested in Buddhism for more than two decades, and the artist himself had studied Zen philosophy and Japanese art. (Pyne, "John Twachtman and the Therapeutic Landscape," in Chotner et al., John Twachtman: Connecticut Landscapes, 1989) This may account for the meditative quality of his pictures, the sense of looking not at an actual landscape, but at an inward image of something seen long before.
Luce Object Quote: "Just imagine how suggestive things are." John Twachtman, quoted in Pyne, "John Twachtman and the Therapeutic Landscape," in Chotner et al., John Twachtman: Connecticut Landscapes, 1989

ca. 1890-1900

See more items in: Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection
Department: Painting and Sculpture
On View: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Luce Foundation Center, 4th Floor, 30A; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Luce Foundation Center; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Luce Foundation Center, 4th Floor

Smithsonian American Art Museum

GUID (Link to Original Record): http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/vk784ec95ff-99da-4ac1-98c3-5341a81eca25