The White Bridge

During the 1890s, John Henry Twachtman purchased a seventeen-acre farm near Greenwich, Connecticut. He set up his studio there and began to explore the land, seeking new subject matter. The white footbridge depicted here spanned a brook that ran through the property. Twachtman admired Japanese art. Here, the strong diagonal of the brook shows Japanese influence, as does the compressed pictorial space. The visual depth appears shallower than in real life, though we still perceive some objects as closer and others as farther off. The gilded frame, original to the picture, is widely believed to be a design by the celebrated architect Stanford White, of the firm McKim, Mead & White, which designed Mia’s original building.