End of Winter

John Henry Twachtman, End of Winter, after 1889, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of William T. Evans, 1909.7.65
Copied John Henry Twachtman, End of Winter, after 1889, oil on canvas, 2230 in. (55.876.3 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of William T. Evans, 1909.7.65
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Artwork Details

Title
End of Winter
Date
after 1889
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
2230 in. (55.876.3 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of William T. Evans
Mediums
Mediums Description
oil on canvas
Classifications
Keywords
  • Landscape — season — spring
  • Landscape — Connecticut — Greenwich
  • Landscape — river — stream
Object Number
1909.7.65

Artwork Description

Twachtman 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 describes the beginning of the seasonal transition from winter to spring. Twachtman depicted bare trees and an icy, swollen brook, but allowed the brown primed canvas to show through his thinly applied paint so that a feeling of warmth and regeneration could emerge. 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.