George Inness (May 1, 1825 – August 3, 1894) was a prominent American

landscape painter Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent composi ...

. Now recognized as one of the most influential American artists of the nineteenth century, Inness was influenced by the

Hudson River School The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area ...

at the start of his career. He also studied the Old Masters, and artists of the

Barbizon school The Barbizon school of painters were part of an art movement towards Realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870. It takes its name ...

during later trips to Europe. There he was introduced to the theology of

Emanuel Swedenborg Emanuel Swedenborg (, ; born Emanuel Swedberg; 29 March 1772) was a Swedish pluralistic-Christian theologian, scientist, philosopher and mystic. He became best known for his book on the afterlife, ''Heaven and Hell'' (1758). Swedenborg had a ...

, which was significant for him; he expressed that spiritualism in the works of his maturity (1879–1894). Although Inness's style evolved through distinct stages over a prolific career that spanned more than forty years and 1,000 paintings, his works consistently earned acclaim for their powerful, coordinated efforts to elicit depth of mood, atmosphere, and emotion. Neither pure realist nor impressionist, Inness was a transitional figure, He worked to combine both the earthly and the ethereal in order to capture the complete essence of a locale in his works. A master of light, color, and shadow, he became noted for creating highly ordered and complex scenes that often juxtaposed hazy or blurred elements with sharp and refined details to evoke an interweaving of both the physical and the spiritual nature of experience. In Inness's words, he attempted through his art to demonstrate the "reality of the unseen” and to connect the "visible upon the invisible." Within his lifetime, art critics hailed Inness as one of America's greatest artists. Often called "the father of American landscape painting," Inness is best known for his mature works that not only exemplified the Tonalist movement but also displayed an original and uniquely American style.

Youth

George Inness was born in

Newburgh, New York Newburgh is a city in the U.S. state of New York, within Orange County. With a population of 28,856 as of the 2020 census, it is a principal city of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown metropolitan area. Located north of New York City, a ...

. He was the fifth of thirteen children born to John William Inness, a farmer, and his wife, Clarissa Baldwin. His family moved to

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area. In his teens, Inness worked as a map engraver in New York City, first for Sherman & Smith, and then N. Currier. During this time he attracted the attention of French landscape painter Régis François Gignoux, with whom he subsequently studied. Throughout the mid-1840s he also attended classes at the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the f ...

, and studied the work of Hudson River School artists

Thomas Cole Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history painti ...

and Asher Durand; "If," Inness later recalled thinking, "these two can be combined, I will try." He debuted his work at the National Academy in 1844. Inness opened his first studio in New York in 1848. In 1849, he married Delia Miller, who died a few months later. The next year he married Elizabeth Abigail Hart, with whom he would have six children.

Early career

In 1851 a patron named Ogden Haggerty sponsored Inness's first trip to Europe to paint and study. Inness spent fifteen months in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, where he studied landscapes by French artists Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin. He rented a studio there above that of painter William Page, who likely introduced the artist to Swedenborgianism. He returned to America with his wife on the ''

SS Great Britain SS ''Great Britain'' is a museum ship and former passenger steamship that was advanced for her time. She was the largest passenger ship in the world from 1845 to 1854. She was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859), for the Great We ...

'' in May 1852. In 1853 he was elected to the

as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1868. During trips to Paris in the early 1850s, Inness came under the influence of artists working in the

of France.

Barbizon Barbizon () is a commune (town) in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France. It is located near the Fontainebleau Forest. Demographics The inhabitants are called ''Barbizonais''. Art history The Barbizon school of painters is nam ...

landscapes were noted for their looser brushwork, darker palette, and emphasis on mood. Inness quickly became the leading American exponent of Barbizon-style painting, which he developed into a highly personal style. In 1854 during one of these trips, his son George Inness, Jr., who also became a landscape painter of note, was born in Paris. In the mid-1850s, Inness was commissioned by the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad to create paintings which documented the progress of DLWRR's growth in early Industrial America. ''The Lackawanna Valley'', painted c. 1855, represents the railroad's first roundhouse at

Scranton Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 U.S. census, Scranton is the largest city in Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Wyoming V ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. It integrates technology and wilderness within an observed landscape; in time, not only would Inness shun the industrial presence in favor of bucolic or agrarian subjects, but he would produce much of his mature work in the studio, drawing on his visual memory to produce scenes that were often inspired by specific places. But the artist was increasingly concerned with formal considerations.

Mid-career

George Inness - Lake Albano - Google Art Project

Inness moved from New York City to

Medfield, Massachusetts Medfield is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 12,799 according to the 2020 United States Census. It is a community about southwest of Boston, Massachusetts, which is a 40-minute drive to Boston's fina ...

in 1860, where he converted a barn into a studio. In 1862–63, he was an art teacher to Charles Dormon Robinson, who became known for works of California. Inness moved to Eagleswood, New Jersey in 1864. (See George Inness House.) He returned to Europe in the spring of 1870, living in Rome and touring Tivoli,

Lake Albano Lake Albano (Italian: ''Lago Albano'' or ''Lago di Castel Gandolfo'') is a small volcanic crater lake in the Alban Hills of Lazio, at the foot of Monte Cavo, southeast of Rome. Castel Gandolfo, overlooking the lake, is the site of the Papal Pal ...

, and

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

. In 1878, he returned to New York City, taking a studio in the New York University Building. The same year, he also participated in the

Universal Exposition A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...

in Paris. In addition to painting, he published art criticism in the ''

New York Evening Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com. It was established i ...

'' and '' Harper's New Monthly Magazine''. His work of the 1860s and 1870s often tended toward the panoramic and picturesque, topped by cloud-laden and threatening skies. It included views of his native country ('' Autumn Oaks'', 1878,

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

; ''Catskill Mountains'', 1870, Art Institute of Chicago), as well as scenes inspired by numerous travels overseas, especially to Italy and France (''The Monk'', 1873,

Addison Gallery of American Art The Addison Gallery of American Art is an academic museum dedicated to collecting American art, organized as a department of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. History Directors of the gallery include Bartlett H. Hayes, Jr. (1940– ...

; ''Etretat'', 1875,

Wadsworth Atheneum The Wadsworth Atheneum is an art museum in Hartford, Connecticut. The Wadsworth is noted for its collections of European Baroque art, ancient Egyptian and Classical bronzes, French and American Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School lands ...

). In terms of composition, precision of drawing, and the emotive use of color, these paintings placed Inness among the best and most successful landscape painters in America. In 1877 Inness built a home and studio at

Tarpon Springs, Florida Tarpon Springs is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. The population was 23,484 at the 2010 census. Tarpon Springs has the highest percentage of Greek Americans of any city in the US. Downtown Tarpon Springs has long been a focal po ...

. He ignored the characteristic palm and painted what some considered the drab pine woods. His painting ''Early Morning – Tarpon Springs'' depicts this environment. Eventually Inness's art expressed the influence of the theology of

. Of particular interest to Inness was the notion that everything in nature had a corresponding relationship with something spiritual and so received an "influx" from God in order to continually exist. Another influence upon Inness's thinking was

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...

, also an adherent of Swedenborgianism. In particular, Inness was inspired by James's idea of consciousness as a "stream of thought", as well as his ideas concerning how mystical experience shapes one's perspective toward nature. Inness was the subject of a major retrospective in 1884, organized by the

American Art Association The American Art Association was an art gallery and auction house with sales galleries, established in 1883. It was first located at 6 East 23rd Street (South Madison Square) in Manhattan, New York City and moved to Madison Ave and 56th St. in ...

, which brought him acclaim in the United States. He earned international fame when he received a gold medal at the

1889 Paris Exposition The Exposition Universelle of 1889 () was a world's fair held in Paris, French Third Republic, France, from 5 May to 31 October 1889. It was the fourth of eight expositions held in the city between 1855 and 1937. It attracted more than thirty-two ...

Late career

After Inness settled in

Montclair, New Jersey Montclair () is a township in Essex County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Situated on the cliffs of the Watchung Mountains, Montclair is a wealthy and diverse commuter town and suburb of New York City within the New York metropolitan area. ...

in 1885, and particularly in the last decade of his life, he expressed this mystical component by a more abstracted handling of shapes, softened edges, and saturated color (''October'', 1886,

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 19 ...

), a profound and dramatic juxtaposition of sky and earth (''Early Autumn, Montclair'', 1888,

Montclair Art Museum The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) is located in Montclair, New Jersey, United States, a few miles west of New York City. Since it opened in 1914 as the first museum in New Jersey that granted access to the public and the first dedicated solely to a ...

), an emphasis on the intimate landscape view (''Sunset in the Woods'', 1891,

Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...

), and an increasingly personal, spontaneous, and often violent handling of paint. It is this last quality in particular which distinguishes Inness from those painters of like sympathies who are characterized as Luminists. In a published interview, Inness maintained that "The true use of art is, first, to cultivate the artist's own spiritual nature." His abiding interest in spiritual and emotional considerations did not preclude Inness from undertaking a scientific study of color, nor a mathematical, structural approach to composition: "The poetic quality is not obtained by eschewing any truths of fact or of Nature...Poetry is the vision of reality." Inness died in 1894 at

Bridge of Allan Bridge of Allan ( sco, Brig Allan, gd, Drochaid Ailein), also known colloquially as ''Bofa'', is a town in the Stirling council area in Scotland, just north of the city of Stirling. Overlooked by the National Wallace Monument, it lies on the ...

in Scotland. According to his son, he was viewing the sunset, when he ''threw up his hands into the air and exclaimed, "My God! oh, how beautiful!"'', fell to the ground, and died minutes later. A public funeral for Inness was held at the National Academy of Design. A memorial exhibition was conducted at the Fine Arts Building in New York City. He is buried in Montclair, New Jersey's Rosedale Cemetery, as is his namesake son.

Gallery

File:Milton New York by George Inness.jpeg, ''Milton, New York'', charcoal, white wash, and gouache over graphite on grey paper, c. 1856,

Yale University Art Gallery The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ...

File:Lake Nemi by George Inness.jpeg, ''Lake Nemi'', oil on canvas, 1857,

File:In the Adirondacks by George Inness.jpeg, ''In the Adirondacks'', oil on canvas, ,

File:WLA brooklynmuseum George Inness -On the Delaware River.jpg, ''On the Delaware River'', 1860s, Brooklyn Museum File:Inness The Valley of the Olives.jpg, ''The Valley of the Olives'', oil on canvas, 1867,

The Walters Art Museum The Walters Art Museum, located in Mount Vernon-Belvedere, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is a public art museum founded and opened in 1934. It holds collections established during the mid-19th century. The museum's collection was amassed ...

File:George Inness - In the Roman Campagna.jpg, ''In the Roman Campagna'', oil on canvas, 1873,

Saint Louis Art Museum The Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) is one of the principal U.S. art museums, with paintings, sculptures, cultural objects, and ancient masterpieces from all corners of the world. Its three-story building stands in Forest Park in St. Louis, ...

File:Etretat George Inness 1875.jpeg, ''Étretat'', oil on canvas, 1875,

File:Evening at Medfield, Massachusetts MET DT11918.jpg, '' Evening at Medfield, Massachusetts'', 1875, Metropolitan Museum of Art File:Inness, George - The Rainbow - Google Art Project.jpg, ''

The Rainbow ''The Rainbow'' is a novel by British author D. H. Lawrence, first published by Methuen & Co. in 1915. It follows three generations of the Brangwen family living in Nottinghamshire, focusing particularly on the individual's struggle to growth ...

'', oil on canvas c. 1878,

Indianapolis Museum of Art The Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) is an encyclopedic art museum located at Newfields, a campus that also houses Lilly House, The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park: 100 Acres, the Gardens at Newfields, the Beer Garden, and more. It ...

File:Two Sisters in the Garden by George Inness 1882.jpg, ''Two Sisters in the Garden'', oil on millboard, 1882, Art Institute of Chicago File:Brooklyn Museum - June - George Inness - overall.jpg, ''June'', 1882, Brooklyn Museum File:Frosty Morning, Montclair by George Inness.jpg, ''Frosty Morning, Montclair'', oil on canvas, 1885 File:Moonrise by George Inness 1887.jpeg, ''Moonrise'', oil on canvas, 1887,

File:Brooklyn Museum - Sunrise - George Inness - overall - 2.jpg, ''Sunrise'', 1887, Brooklyn Museum File:Brooklyn Museum - Sunset over the Sea - George Inness - overall.jpg, ''Sunset over the Sea'', 1887, Brooklyn Museum File:George Inness - The Mill Stream, Montclair, New Jersey - 2000.236 - Minneapolis Institute of Arts.jpg, ''The Mill Stream, Montclair, New Jersey'', c. 1888,

Minneapolis Institute of Art The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United State ...

File:Inness - Sunset on the Passaic, oil on canvas, 1891.jpg, ''Sunset on the Passaic'', oil on canvas, 1891,

Honolulu Museum of Art The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. The museum has one of the largest single co ...

File:Edge of the Forest by George Inness 1891.jpeg, ''Edge of the Forest'', oil on canvas, 1891,

File:Spring Blossoms, Montclair, New Jersey MET DT98.jpg, ''Spring Blossoms, Montclair, New Jersey'', oil and crayon or charcoal on canvas, c.1891 File:Inness George Early Morning Tarpon Springs.jpg, ''Early Morning, Tarpon Springs'' oil painting, 1892 File:Pool in the Woods (George Inness).jpg, ''Pool in the Woods'', 1892, oil painting File:George Inness - The Home of the Heron - Google Art Project.jpg, '' The Home of the Heron'', 1893, Art Institute of Chicago File:George Inness 002.jpg, ''Summer Landscape'', 1894

Works

* '' Spring Blossoms, Montclair, New Jersey'' (c.1891)

References

External links

*
George Inness. The Complete Works

Inness on AskArt.com

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute 2008 exhibition "Like Breath on Glass: Whistler, Inness, and the Art of Painting Softly."

"Up from the Basement – To Stardom"
''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', Retrieved December 2, 2011
American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Inness (see index)
Documenting the Gilded Age: New York City Exhibitions at the Turn of the 20th Century
A

New York Art Resources Consortium The New York Art Resources Consortium (NYARC) consists of the research libraries of three leading art museums in New York City: The Brooklyn Museum, The Frick Collection, and The Museum of Modern Art. With funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundatio ...

project. Exhibition catalogs, a biographical description, and an essay by Thomas Kirby on Inness. {{DEFAULTSORT:Inness, George 1825 births 1894 deaths People from Newburgh, New York American Swedenborgians 19th-century American painters American male painters American landscape painters People from Montclair, New Jersey Tonalism Campagna Romana Artists from Newark, New Jersey People from Eagleswood Township, New Jersey Painters from Florida Tarpon Springs, Florida Hudson River School painters