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Winter was painted on Twachtman’s farm near Greenwich, Connecticut, near the home of his close friend, the painter J. Alden Weir, and within commuting distance of New York City. Throughout the 1890s, he found a seemingly inexhaustible source of inspiration on this property, painting many of his best-known scenes of brooks and pools on the grounds of his farm.
It was at this time that his adaptation of French impressionist theory evolved into a mature, personal style, emphasizing atmospheric effects. In depicting both familiar terrain in his own backyard and more exotic locales such as Yellowstone, Twachtman tended to focus on a single feature within a small area such as a pool or falls, and to paint it again when the seasons changed. In his numerous paintings of these familiar landmarks, Twachtman captured the changing effects of seasons and weather; most, like Winter, have titles referring to the time of year. Influenced by Whistler's soft, subdued tones, Twachtman painted many Winter scenes, keying his palette to the saturated white of snow, ice, and atmosphere. Winter, painted in the early 1890s, has a mood of hushed stillness, typical of softly falling snow and conveyed through even, muted tonalities and vaporous, mist-shrouded forms, seen through a veil of snow.
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