John Henry Twachtman Catalogue Raisonné
An online catalogue by Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D., in collaboration with the Greenwich Historical Society
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Venice, Campo Santa Marta, ca. 1878 (OP.211). Fig. 1. "Campo di S. Marta dal Canale del Campo di Marte," in Pompeo Molmenti, Calli E Canali In Venezia (Venice: Ferd. Ongania, 1890–91), plate 74.
Fig. 1. "Campo di S. Marta dal Canale del Campo di Marte," in Pompeo Molmenti, Calli E Canali In Venezia (Venice: Ferd. Ongania, 1890–91), plate 74.
Venice, Campo Santa Marta, ca. 1878 (OP.211). Fig. 2. James McNeill Whistler, Campo Sta Marta--Winter Evening, 1880, pastel on paper, 8 3/16 x 11 in., Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Gift of Charles Lang Freer (F1917.7a–b).
Fig. 2. James McNeill Whistler, Campo Sta Marta--Winter Evening, 1880, pastel on paper, 8 3/16 x 11 in., Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Gift of Charles Lang Freer (F1917.7a–b).
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Keywords
OP.211
Venice, Campo Santa Marta
Alternate titles: Campo Marti, Venice; Campo Marto; Venezia, Campo Santa Marta; Woman on the Quai
ca. 1878
Oil on canvas
17 x 23 in. (43.2 x 58.4 cm)
Signed lower left: J. H. Twachtman (signature scratched into the paint)
Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Gift of Nancy K. Anderson, grandniece of John Henry Twachtman (2015.21)
Exhibitions
1879 National Academy of Design
National Academy of Design, New York, Fifty-Fourth Annual Exhibition, April 1–May 31, 1879, no. 207, as Campo Marti, Venice.
1997 Foundation Giorgio Cini
Foundation Giorgio Cini, Venice, Italy, Venezia da Stato a Mito, August 30–November 30, 1997, no. 112, pp. 282 ill. in color, 392–93, as Venezia, Campo Santa Marta.
2017 Hunter Museum of Art
Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, Artistic Excursions: John Twachtman and Friends, June 1, 2017–December 30, 2018, as Venice, Campo Santa Marta.
Literature
Hale 1957
Hale, John Douglass. "Life and Creative Development of John H. Twachtman." 2 vols. Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1957. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1958, vol. 2, p. 439 (catalogue G, no. 113), as Campo Marto. (Hale concordance).
Peters 1992
Peters, Lisa N. "John H. Twachtman: A 'Modern' in Venice, 1877-1878." In The Italian Presence in American Art, 1860–1920, ed. Irma B. Jaffe. New York: Fordham University Press, 1992, pp. 69–70 ill. in b/w, as Venice, Campo Santa Marta.
Peters 1995
Peters, Lisa N. "John Twachtman (1853–1902) and the American Scene in the Late Nineteenth Century: The Frontier within the Terrain of the Familiar." 2 vols. Ph.D. dissertation, City University of New York, 1995. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International, 1996, vol. 1, pp. 56–57; vol. 2, p. 602 ill. in b/w (fig. 44), as Venice, Campo Santa Marta.
Gerdts 1997
Gerdts, William H. "'Un Sogno di Bellezza e di Colore': Pittori Americani a Venezia." In Venezia da Stato a Mito, ed. Alessandro Bettagno. Venice: Fondazione Giorgio Cini, 1997, pp. 282 ill. in color, 392–93, as Venice, Campo Santa Marta.
Peters 1999–I
Peters, Lisa N. John Henry Twachtman: An American Impressionist. Atlanta: High Museum of Art, 1999. Exhibition catalogue (1999 High Museum of Art), pp. 27–28 ill. in b/w, as Venice, Campo Santa Marta.
Gerdts 2006
"The International Milieu." In Sargent's Venice, Warren Adelson et al. New Haven, Ct.: Yale University, 2006, pp. 165–66 ill. in color, 167, as Venice, Campo Santa Marta.
Peters 2006–II
Peters, Lisa N. "Twachtman's Realist Art and the Aesthetic Liberation of Modern Life." In John Twachtman (1853–1902): A "Painter's Painter", by Lisa N. Peters. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2006. Exhibition catalogue (2006 Spanierman), pp. 35 ill. in color (fig. 27), 36, as Venice, Campo Santa Marta.
Commentary

Exhibited at the National Academy of Design in spring 1879 as Campo Marti [sic], Venice, this painting depicts Santa Marta Square, at the western tip of Venice’s Dorsoduro sestiere, where Twachtman stayed during his 1877–78 trip to the city. The view is looking north along the Fondamenta de l’Arzere toward the square, where the church of Santa Marta is between the Piazzale Roma and the Zattere. According to Pompeo Molmenti, in Calli E Canali In Venezia (1890–91, "this remote and populous quarter of the city lost its artistic character in 1883 when numerous buildings were demolished to make way for the new Cotton Mills. Some parts still call to mind the ancient aspect of those piazza, but the songs of the famous Mondays immortalized by Guardi's brush and by the writings of Giustina Michiel are no longer heard there."[1] A photograph in the book features the site, which Twachtman viewed from a lower and more westward angle with more of the canal in view (fig. 1).

Whistler found his way to this same location, depicting it in his pastel, Winter Campo Sta. Marta—Winter Evening, 1880 (fig. 2), originally titled Campo Sta. Martin. Whistler scholar Margaret MacDonald conjectures that Twachtman could have seen Whistler's image in creating his own oil.[2] However, Twachtman's visit to Venice (spring 1877 to spring 1878) preceded that of Whistler (May 1879 to November 1880) and this painting was on view at the National Academy of Design in April 1879, before Whistler set foot in the city.

The two artists' viewpoints are different. Whistler's is angled to the left with an empty foreground and buildings massed at the right. Twachtman's is a more straight-on view and cropped at the left. Standing on the quay, he captured the passing moment as a woman walks toward him carrying a basket, while a man with animal pelts hanging from a shoulder yoke, heads in the opposite direction. Twachtman's foreshortening gives the white sail of a small square-rigged vessel prominence in the composition, while drawing attention to the line of white laundry that continues its diagonal line into the right distance. He perhaps used this scene as the basis for the etching, Woman on the Quay (E.200), in which the arrangement is reversed. 

[1] Pompeo Molmenti, "Index," Calli E Canali in Venezia (Venice: Ferdinando Ongania, 1895), N.8., plate 74.

[2] Margaret MacDonald, Palaces in the Night: Whistler in Venice (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), p. 40.