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May Day

Savor John Twachtman's "mistifying" impressionist landscape!

Misty May Morn exemplifies the artist's "tonalism," his exploration of lyrical atmospheric effects through a narrow range of color scales. Reminiscent of Claude Monet's impressionist paintings of poplars, this work shows spindly trees bordering a river amid a landscape of dissolved light.

Casting thick layers of pastel greens, yellows, and blues, Twachtman transforms the canvas into a visual harmony of early spring hues. Some contemporary critics related the painter's fondness for asymmetry and abstraction, apparent here, to Asian art; others claimed to discern in the work's intimacy and quietude the influence of Zen Buddhism. With ethereal colors and indeterminate forms, Twachtman conveys his own delight in spring's dewy freshness and fragility.

Source: Elizabeth Prelinger. American Impressionism: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (New York and Washington, D.C.: Watson-Guptill Publications, in cooperation with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2000).

Pictured: John Henry Twachtman, 1853–1902, Misty May Morn, 1899, oil, 25 1/8 x 30 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly.