Portrait of George Inness

George Inness Painting Reproductions 1 of 8

1825-1894

American Romanticism Painter

George Inness (May 1, 1825 - August 3, 1894), was an American landscape painter; born in Newburgh, New York; died at Bridge of Allan in Scotland. His work was influenced, in turn, by the that of the old masters, the Hudson River school, the Barbizon school, and, finally, by the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg, whose spiritualism found vivid expression in the work of Inness' maturity.

Youth
Inness was the fifth of thirteen children born to John Williams Inness, a farmer, and his wife, Clarissa Baldwin. His family moved to Newark, New Jersey when he was about five years of age. In 1839 he studied for several months with an itinerant painter, John Jesse Barker. In his teens, Inness worked as a map engraver in New York City. During this time he attracted the attention of French landscape painter Regis-Francois Gignoux, with whom he subsequently studied. Throughout the mid-1840s he also attended classes at the National Academy of Design, and studied the work of Hudson River School artists Thomas Cole and Asher Durand; "If", Inness later recalled thinking, "these two can be combined, I will try."
Concurrent with these studies Inness opened his first studio in New York. In 1849 Inness 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' first trip to Europe to paint and study. Inness spent more than a year in Rome, during which time he rented a studio above that of painter William Page, who likely introduced the artist to Swedenborgianism.
During trips to Paris in the early 1850s, Inness came under the influence of artists working in the Barbizon school of France. Barbizon 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 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 ca. 1855, represents the railroad's first roundhouse at Scranton, Pennsylvania and 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, yet increasingly concerned with formal considerations.

Maturity
The work of the 1860s and 1870s often tended toward the panoramic and picturesque, topped by cloud-laden and threatening skies, and included views of his native country (Autumn Oaks, 1878, Metropolitan Museum of Art ; 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; Etretat, 1875, Wadsworth Atheneum). 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.

Eventually Inness' art evidenced the influence of the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg. Of particular interest to Inness was the notion that everything in nature had a correspondential relationship with something spiritual and so received an "influx" from God in order to continually exist.

Another influence upon Inness' thinking was William James, also an adherent to Swedenborgianism. In particular, Inness was inspired by James' idea of consciousness as a "stream of thought", as well as his ideas concerning how mystical experience shapes one's perspective toward nature.

After Inness settled in Montclair, New Jersey in 1878, and particularly in the last decade of his life, this mystical component manifested in his art through a more abstracted handling of shapes, softened edges, and saturated color (October, 1886, Los Angeles County Museum of Art), a profound and dramatic juxtaposition of sky and earth (Early Autumn, Montclair, 1888, Montclair Art Museum), an emphasis on the intimate landscape view (Sunset in the Woods, 1891, Corcoran Gallery of Art), 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 while in Scotland in 1894. 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.

188 George Inness Paintings

Early Autumn, Montclair, 1891 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Early Autumn, Montclair 1891

Oil Painting
$591
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: ING-2680
George Inness
Original Size: 73.6 x 114.3 cm
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, USA

October Noon, 1891 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

October Noon 1891

Oil Painting
$620
Canvas Print
$50.23
SKU: ING-2681
George Inness
Original Size: 77.8 x 113.3 cm
Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA

The Clouded Sun, 1891 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Clouded Sun 1891

Oil Painting
$513
Canvas Print
$85.39
SKU: ING-2682
George Inness
Original Size: 76.2 x 114.3 cm
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, USA

Summer, Montclair (New Jersey Landscape), 1891 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Summer, Montclair (New Jersey Landscape) 1891

Oil Painting
$555
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: ING-2683
George Inness
Original Size: 76.8 x 114.3 cm
The Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts, USA

Sunset, Etretat, 1892 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Sunset, Etretat 1892

Oil Painting
$647
Canvas Print
$81.82
SKU: ING-2684
George Inness
Original Size: 76.7 x 114.6 cm
Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, USA

The Home at Montclair, 1892 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Home at Montclair 1892

Oil Painting
$564
Canvas Print
$50.65
SKU: ING-2685
George Inness
Original Size: 76.7 x 114.3 cm
The Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts, USA

Early Morning, Tarpon Springs, 1892 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Early Morning, Tarpon Springs 1892

Oil Painting
$532
Canvas Print
$96.47
SKU: ING-2686
George Inness
Original Size: 107.2 x 82.2 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, USA

Early Moonrise, Florida (Early Morning, Florida), 1893 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Early Moonrise, Florida (Early Morning, Florida) 1893

Oil Painting
$532
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: ING-2687
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, USA

Sunset, Golden Glow, 1893 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Sunset, Golden Glow 1893

Oil Painting
$460
SKU: ING-2688
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Sundown, 1894 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Sundown 1894

Oil Painting
$492
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: ING-2689
George Inness
Original Size: 77.8 x 114.2 cm
Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, USA

Morning, Catskill Valley, 1894 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Morning, Catskill Valley 1894

Oil Painting
$542
SKU: ING-2690
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California, USA

Etretat, Normandy, 1877 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Etretat, Normandy 1877

Oil Painting
$532
SKU: ING-2691
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

A Gray Lowery Day, 1877 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

A Gray Lowery Day 1877

Oil Painting
$452
SKU: ING-2692
George Inness
Original Size: 45.4 x 65 cm
Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, USA

Morning, c.1878 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Morning c.1878

Oil Painting
$591
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: ING-2693
George Inness
Original Size: 76.2 x 114.3 cm
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid, Spain

Winter Morning, Montclair, 1882 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Winter Morning, Montclair 1882

Oil Painting
$524
SKU: ING-2694
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey, USA

The Old Oak, Medfield, Massachusetts, 1875 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Old Oak, Medfield, Massachusetts 1875

Oil Painting
$396
SKU: ING-2695
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Late Afternoon, c.1882 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Late Afternoon c.1882

Oil Painting
$355
SKU: ING-2696
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

The Palisaides, c.1884 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Palisaides c.1884

Oil Painting
$524
SKU: ING-2697
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Sunset at Milton, 1885 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Sunset at Milton 1885

Oil Painting
$384
Canvas Print
$50.38
SKU: ING-2698
George Inness
Original Size: 40.6 x 60.3 cm
Private Collection

Sundown near Montclair, 1885 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Sundown near Montclair 1885

Oil Painting
$478
SKU: ING-2699
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Georgia Pines - Afternoon, 1886 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Georgia Pines - Afternoon 1886

Oil Painting
$406
SKU: ING-2700
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

A Breezy Autumn, 1887 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

A Breezy Autumn 1887

Oil Painting
$589
SKU: ING-2701
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Early Autumn, Montclair, 1888 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Early Autumn, Montclair 1888

Oil Painting
$532
SKU: ING-2702
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey, USA

Saco Ford - Conway Meadows, 1876 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Saco Ford - Conway Meadows 1876

Oil Painting
$503
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: ING-2703
George Inness
Original Size: 96.5 x 160 cm
Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, USA

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