Booklist Review

Twachtman (1853-1902) was esteemed in his time as a painter's painter and is now considered perhaps the most impressionist American artist. In the three essays in this catalog of an exhibition now in Hartford, comparison with Monet is commonplace. But Twachtman's aims were different from the great Frenchman's. Both men's landscapes evidence an instinctive sense of good composition and vital form, but whereas Monet's canvasses hum and shimmer to express the immediacy of his vision, Twachtman's are quiet and contemplative, mediated by, as essayist Kathleen A. Pyne argues, "longing for reassurance in the face of overwhelming social and philosophical changes." They are, she says, therapeutic: Buddhistly serene visions of the differing seasonal faces of the hills, trees, and streams around his Greenwich, Connecticut, home. Besides the 26 exhibited works reproduced in color after the essays, the 10-by-11-inch album magnifies its visual splendor with many full-page color details and a large complement of black-and-white figures. The essays are separately annotated. Select bibliography. --Ray Olson