Catalogue Entry
Exhibited for the first time in 1898 at the first annual of the Ten American Painters, On the Terrace is among the most complete statements of the harmony between art and life that Twachtman felt in his Greenwich years. Depicting a view toward the north facade of his home, he portrayed his wife and three children encircled by flowers and a vine trellis over the back door, crowned with a small gable. Showing the figures in white clothing, Twachtman evoked an image of the Holy Family. The geometry of the family's home and the L-shape formed by the phlox flowers at the edge of the garden add to the artist's idealized representation of his Greenwich life.
Bookending the group, the two girls appear close in age—they are likely to be Marjorie (born June 5, 1884), the figure with long blond hair at the back of the group, and Elsie (born November 2, 1886), in profile in the front. Twachtman may have included Elsie as a memorial, as his daughter died at age nine from scarlet fever in January 1895. This idea is furthered in Twachtman's image of Elsie, similarly in profile, in a portrait (OP.971). The baby on Martha's lap is probably Godfrey, who was born December 6, 1897.
By 1899, On the Terrace belonged to John Gellatly, who probably purchased it from the Ten American Painters exhibition in the previous year. As indicated by descriptions in reviews, the painting was in Twachtman’s 1901 one-man exhibition at Durand-Ruel Gallery in New York, presumably lent by Gellatly. Gellatly lent it again to the 1907 memorial show of Twachtman’s work held at the Lotos Club, and gave it to its current collection along with the rest of his extensive holdings in 1929.
Of Twachtman’s examples the best are “New Bridge,” “Early Spring,” and “On the Terrace.” The two former canvases have the artist’s characteristic delicate and delicious color scheme, and the last has an atmosphere and sentiment which almost recalls Breton. It is a serious and able work.
From New York Sun 1898–II
Mr. John H. Twachtman has six canvases, some of them landscapes, but the most pleasing and the one containing most of the true feeling of out of doors is the view of a garden with figures in white, “On the Terrace,” No. 35.
From Van Dyke 1898
Mr. Twachtman is closely affiliated with Mr. Weir in his point of view. He, too has a temperament and can see nature in decorative patterns, resplendent in light, yet harmonized by the atmospheric envelope. Notice, for instance, the admirable arrangement of the picture called “On the Terrace” (No. 35) the placing of the flowers in the foreground, the house in the background, and the group of the white figures as a mass or spot of light in the middle distance. It is absolutely true in tone and values, true also in drawing; but, aside from its truth or falsity, how beautiful again it is as decoration! This decorative quality is the last thing that people look at in a picture, and yet it should be the first thing. If a picture is not pleasing to the eye, then it has missed in the primary requirements of pictorial art.
From New York Times 1901
In the pictures with figures, we find again Twachtman’s love of white. In “On the Terrace” we see the mother in white surrounded by three children in white as she sits in her rocking chair, with a white cottage not far away. Only the heads of phlox near by give strong colors, but they are not allowed great play.
From de Kay 1918
In the painting of figures Twachtman carried the romantic touch, the sensitive quality one sees in his landscapes and flower pieces. A notable instance is the portrait of his wife with her children in the Gellatly collection. She is seated before the low-pitched home among her flower-beds; it is hard to say which is more charming, the group of mother and children or the masses of growing flowers. A solidarity seems established between the two. Nor is the house negligible in its picturesque value as a background. Without seeing this picture one can scarcely get a rounded idea of the artist. Certainly it is one of the most beautiful of Twachtman’s paintings.
From Larkin 2001
The almost religious atmosphere of Barnyard [OP.970] also permeates On the Terrace, in which Twachtman depicted his wife with three of their children in the garden behind their house. By concealing the horizon, the artist immersed the viewer in his private world.Although the figures are pushed to the rightmost third of the composition, their central importance is underscored by the wedge-shaped pedestal of white terrace. Garbed in metaphorically “pure” white, the family is obliquely enshrined by the sheltering gable and the Gothic-arched trellis crowned with yellow blossoms. A golden light glows within the house, as from a sanctuary. Twachtman exaggerated the scale of the white phlox in the center foreground and the pink one just behind it, making them secular counterparts of the Madonna's lily. Radiant golden highlights--on the daughters' hair, the roof of his house, the plants in his garden—glorify this tender image of home as shelter and shrine [pp. 143–44].
- Museum website (americanart.si.edu)