Portrait of George Inness

George Inness Painting Reproductions 2 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

The Storm, 1876 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Storm 1876

Oil Painting
$600
Canvas Print
$50.38
SKU: ING-2704
George Inness
Original Size: 64.5 x 97.2 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, USA

Hillside at Etretat, 1876 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Hillside at Etretat 1876

Oil Painting
$564
Canvas Print
$68.61
SKU: ING-2705
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, USA

Twilight, 1875 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Twilight 1875

Oil Painting
$396
SKU: ING-2706
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Kearsarge Village, 1875 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Kearsarge Village 1875

Oil Painting
$396
SKU: ING-2707
George Inness
Original Size: 40.9 x 60.9 cm
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts, USA

Castel Gandolfo, 1876 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Castel Gandolfo 1876

Oil Painting
$552
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: ING-2708
George Inness
Original Size: 51 x 76.3 cm
Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Oregon, USA

Landscape - Sunset, 1870 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Landscape - Sunset 1870

Oil Painting
$355
SKU: ING-2709
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Commencement of the Galleria (Rome, the Appian Way, 1870 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Commencement of the Galleria (Rome, the Appian Way 1870

Oil Painting
$609
SKU: ING-2710
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Coast Scene, c.1857 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Coast Scene c.1857

Oil Painting
$318
SKU: ING-2711
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

The Coming Storm, 1872 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Coming Storm 1872

Oil Painting
$396
SKU: ING-2712
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Munson Williams Proctor Art Institute, Utica, USA

Passing Clouds, 1876 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Passing Clouds 1876

Oil Painting
$513
SKU: ING-2713
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Spring, 1860 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Spring 1860

Oil Painting
$318
SKU: ING-2714
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Sunset, c.1860/65 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Sunset c.1860/65

Oil Painting
$268
SKU: ING-2715
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

The Coming Storm, 1878 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Coming Storm 1878

Oil Painting
$532
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: ING-2716
George Inness
Original Size: 66 x 97.8 cm
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, USA

October, 1886 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

October 1886

Oil Painting
$524
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: ING-2717
George Inness
Original Size: 50.7 x 75.9 cm
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California, USA

Spirit of Autumn, 1891 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Spirit of Autumn 1891

Oil Painting
$524
Canvas Print
$50.51
SKU: ING-2718
George Inness
Original Size: 76.2 x 114.3 cm
Colby College Museum of Art, Maine, USA

Near the Village, October, 1892 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Near the Village, October 1892

Oil Painting
$524
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: ING-2719
George Inness
Original Size: 76.2 x 114.3 cm
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio, USA

St. Andrews, New Brunswick, 1893 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

St. Andrews, New Brunswick 1893

Oil Painting
$492
Canvas Print
$95.75
SKU: ING-2720
George Inness
Original Size: 82.6 x 108 cm
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California, USA

Evening at Medfield, Massachusetts, 1869 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Evening at Medfield, Massachusetts 1869

Oil Painting
$312
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: ING-2721
George Inness
Original Size: 29.8 x 44.5 cm
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California, USA

A Bit of Roman Aqueduct, c.1852 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

A Bit of Roman Aqueduct c.1852

Oil Painting
$564
Canvas Print
$55.35
SKU: ING-3838
George Inness
Original Size: 99 x 135 cm
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, USA

In the Berkshires, c.1848/50 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

In the Berkshires c.1848/50

Oil Painting
$790
Canvas Print
$70.30
SKU: ING-5716
George Inness
Original Size: 61 x 56 cm
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid, Spain

The Wood Chopper, 1849 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Wood Chopper 1849

Oil Painting
$603
Canvas Print
$62.97
SKU: ING-6868
George Inness
Original Size: 50.5 x 60.6 cm
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, USA

Evening Landscape, c.1862/63 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Evening Landscape c.1862/63

Oil Painting
$542
SKU: ING-8414
George Inness
Original Size: 120.6 x 166.3 cm
Washington State University Museum of Art, Pullman, USA

The Road to the Farm, 1862 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Road to the Farm 1862

Oil Painting
$758
SKU: ING-8423
George Inness
Original Size: 66 x 91.4 cm
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts, USA

Monastery at Albano, c.1875 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Monastery at Albano c.1875

Oil Painting
$357
SKU: ING-8700
George Inness
Original Size: 25.4 x 33.6 cm
Private Collection

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