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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Catalogue Entry

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Additional Images
Paradise Rocks, Newport, ca. 1889 (OP.842). Fig. 1. John La Farge, The Last Valley—Paradise Rocks, 1867–68, oil on canvas, 32 3/4 x 42 5/16 in., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Gaillard F. Ravenel and Frances P. Smyth-Ravenel Fund (2000.144.1).
Fig. 1. John La Farge, The Last Valley—Paradise Rocks, 1867–68, oil on canvas, 32 3/4 x 42 5/16 in., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Gaillard F. Ravenel and Frances P. Smyth-Ravenel Fund (2000.144.1).
Keywords
OP.842
Paradise Rocks, Newport
ca. 1889
Oil on canvas
31 1/2 x 47 in. (80 x 119.4 cm)
Signed lower right: J. H. Twachtman
Private collection
Image: Roz Akin
Provenance
Private collection, California;
to Edward Pouch;
Alice Carson, Greenwich, Connecticut;
to Mr. and Mrs. F. Herbert Filley, Greenwich, Connecticut;
by descent in the family;
to present collection, 2005.
Exhibitions
2006 Spanierman
Spanierman Gallery, New York, John Twachtman (1853–1902): A "Painter's Painter," May 4–June 24, 2006. (Nelson 2006); (Parkes 2006); (Peters 2006–I); (Peters 2006–II); (Peters 2006–III); (Peters 2006–IV), no. 31, as Paradise Rocks, Newport, shown only in New York. Traveled to: Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich, Connecticut, July 13–October 29, 2006.
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. 567 (catalogue A, no. 517), as Paradise Rocks, Newport. (Hale concordance).
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, p. 261; vol. 2, p. 801 ill. in b/w (fig. 276), as Paradise Rocks, Newport.
Peters 2006–IV
Peters, Lisa N. "Catalogue." In John Twachtman (1853–1902): A "Painter's Painter", by Lisa N. Peters. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2006. Exhibition catalogue (2006 Spanierman), pp. 140–41 ill. in color, as Paradise Rocks, Newport.
Commentary

The site depicted—an area of Newport known as "Paradise"—was popular with many Newport artists. Twachtman's viewpoint in the work was across Nelson's Pond from the south end, looking east toward a small island on the pond's opposite shore. This locale was also portrayed from this vantage point in works by John Frederick Kensett, John La Farge, and Homer Martin.[1] However, viewing the scene from a low and close perspective, Twachtman involves the viewer in the subtleties of its relative relationships of form and light, rather in the grandeur of its rock formations under the dramatic light of sunset, as in La Farge's 1867–68 more sweeping view (fig. 1). In the repeating horizontals of near land, water, hills, and sky, in Paradise Rocks, Newport, Twachtman reiterated his key French period painting, Arques-la-Bataille (OP.731).

[1] I would like to thank James Yarnall for his help in identifying the site in this painting.