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John H. Twachtman (1853-1902) yellowstone park signed J.H. Twachtman, l.r. oil on canvas 30 by 25 in. (76.2 by 63.5cm.) Painted circa 1895. In 1895, approximately two years after visiting Chicago to receive a Silver Medal from the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and approximately one year after winning the Temple Gold Medal for landscape at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, John Twachtman was commissioned by Major W.A. Wadsworth of Buffalo, New York to paint a series of four paintings of the western half of Yellowstone Park in Wyoming, of which Yellowstone Park is one. Twachtman described his trip to Yellowstone as ". . . like the outing of a city boy to the country for the first time" and wrote to his patron, Major Wadsworth, that he was "overwhelmed with things to do . . . there is so much romance in the falls and the caN0on." So taken was Twachtman with his new surroundings that he painted at least four additional pictures for himself, two of which-The Rapids, Yellowstone (circa 1895, oil on canvas, 30 by 30 1/8 inches, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts) and Colorado (circa 1895, oil on canvas, 30 by 30 1/8 inches, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts)-were in the artist's possession at the time of his death. In Yellowstone Park, Twachtman departs from the detailed topographical depictions of the park's majestic sites, as painted by his contemporaries, such as Thomas Moran. Instead, Twachtman concentrates on sensuous textures and employs the light-keyed palette of his modified Impressionism. As Richard Boyle writes, "No other American painter of the late nineteenth century better expresses, or puts to better use, the restraint and the philosophical, contemplative tendencies characterizing the tradition of American landscape painting than John H. Twachtman" (John Twachtman, New York, 1979, p. 54). Yellowstone Park also displays the impact of Japanese culture, which had penetrated into Western art, largely owing to the teachi