Interpretive Resource

For John Henry Twachtman, Cos Cob, Connecticut, was a source of never-ending artistic inspiration. He purchased property there in 1889, and, over the following decade, made improvements to his house and surrounding land. In 1895 he added a trellised, white footbridge, which spanned Horseneck Brook. Twachtman carefully selected the proportions and color of the structure to enhance the site’s inherent aesthetic qualities. He then made at least five paintings of the bridge from different vantage points, exploring its relationship to both the man-made and natural world. These works are contemporaneous with Claude Monet’s pictures of the Japanese bridge over his water-lily pond at Giverny; although Twachtman was less methodical (and less prolific) than Monet, he worked with a similarly palpable love of place.

The Art Institute’s White Bridge is a vivid, joyous image of springtime that complements Icebound, Twachtman’s rendition of the same brook in winter. Delineated with bright, white paint, the bridge crosses over the reflective surface of the water and stands out sharply through transparent trees in the foreground. The light, feathery strokes that compose the bridge echo those used to trace the limbs and branches of the surrounding hemlocks. The artist thus used brushwork to unify forms on the surface of the canvas, as he had made an effort to integrate the bridge itself into the Cos Cob setting. Twachtman’s desire to show human construction in harmony with nature indicates his concern—widespread at the turn of the twentieth century—about the effects of urban and industrial growth. A witness to (and participant in) the suburbanization of rural Connecticut, Twachtman lamented the threat posed to the pastoral landscape he loved.