Arques-la-Bataille, John Henry Twachtman and preliminary version for same.
When 19th century American painter John Henry Twachtman moved to Paris from Munich, he abandoned the dark palette of his original teachers, and adopted to some extent the brighter palette of the French Impressionists.
However, he also moved away from their broken color and loaded brush paint application, bringing to much of his work a subtle, tonalist approach barely breathed onto the canvas.
The large studio painting at top, with two detail crops — 60 x 789 in. (152 x 200 cm) — was based on the earlier smaller scale painting — 18 x 26in. (46 x 66cm) — painted on location in Normandy (above, bottom, with detail).
Both paintings are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
