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Unlike artists of the Eight such as John Sloan and Robert Henri, Tack disliked the city, and Winter is the sole example of an urban scene in Tack's oeuvre. Indeed the artist’s letters are peppered with references to his aversion to the noise, crowds, and chaos of New York; thus, it is no coincidence that only the softening and enchanting effects of a blizzard in Manhattan could induce him to paint the city. The painter’s depiction of a blizzard-transformed Manhattan street—seen at an oblique angle from high above—derives its basic composition from Japanese prints, which Tack knew well. Like Hiroshige and other Japanese printmakers, who were fascinated by nuances of weather, Tack gives a vivid sense of the swirling snow and dense atmosphere enveloping the buildings and the scurrying pedestrians.
The decorative palette and free, tendril-like brushstrokes, which recall Claude Monet's late work, animates the surface in a dizzying mass. The cool color range of blues and grays is enlivened with lavender accents, point toward Tack's pointillist period in the teens. In style, the work invites comparison with American and French painters exploring urban themes in an impressionist idiom, and bears special affinities with Childe Hassam's winter city scenes. Its theme and mood also coincide with an American revival of tonalism in the depiction of city views in painting and photography.
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