Portrait of George Inness

George Inness Painting Reproductions 8 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 Valley on a Gloomy Day, 1892 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Valley on a Gloomy Day 1892

Oil Painting
$590
Canvas Print
$83.25
SKU: ING-12249
George Inness
Original Size: 75.7 x 115 cm
Colby College Museum of Art, Maine, USA

Cattle in Pool (A Summer Landscape), 1880 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Cattle in Pool (A Summer Landscape) 1880

Oil Painting
$518
Canvas Print
$62.55
SKU: ING-17003
George Inness
Original Size: 68.6 x 56 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA

Pasture Lands, 1867 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Pasture Lands 1867

Oil Painting
$516
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: ING-17004
George Inness
Original Size: 43 x 67.3 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA

Landscape, 1878 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Landscape 1878

Oil Painting
$427
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: ING-17005
George Inness
Original Size: 30.2 x 45.7 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA

Landscape, 1866 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Landscape 1866

Oil Painting
$380
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: ING-17006
George Inness
Original Size: 23 x 33.7 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA

Etretat, 1875 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Etretat 1875

Oil Painting
$493
Canvas Print
$50.79
SKU: ING-17364
George Inness
Original Size: 76 x 114 cm
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, USA

Watching the Sun Glow, 1887 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Watching the Sun Glow 1887

Oil Painting
$492
Canvas Print
$61.30
SKU: ING-17547
George Inness
Original Size: 67.6 x 55.2 cm
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, USA

Autumn in Montclair, c.1894 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Autumn in Montclair c.1894

Oil Painting
$472
Canvas Print
$52.10
SKU: ING-17560
George Inness
Original Size: 73.7 x 91 cm
The Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts, USA

Sunrise in the Woods, 1887 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Sunrise in the Woods 1887

Oil Painting
$540
Canvas Print
$50.65
SKU: ING-17561
George Inness
Original Size: 50.8 x 76.2 cm
The Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts, USA

Green Landscape, 1886 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Green Landscape 1886

Oil Painting
$561
Canvas Print
$56.88
SKU: ING-17562
George Inness
Original Size: 76.8 x 102.6 cm
The Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts, USA

Scene at Durham, an Idyll, c.1882/85 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Scene at Durham, an Idyll c.1882/85

Oil Painting
$611
Canvas Print
$56.88
SKU: ING-17563
George Inness
Original Size: 101.6 x 76.2 cm
The Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts, USA

A Pastoral, c.1882/85 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

A Pastoral c.1882/85

Oil Painting
$644
Canvas Print
$50.51
SKU: ING-17564
George Inness
Original Size: 76.2 x 114.3 cm
The Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts, USA

The Road to the Village, Milton, 1880 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Road to the Village, Milton 1880

Oil Painting
$595
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: ING-17565
George Inness
Original Size: 56 x 86.4 cm
The Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts, USA

Lake Albano, 1869 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Lake Albano 1869

Oil Painting
$877
Canvas Print
$50.51
SKU: ING-17566
George Inness
Original Size: 77 x 115.2 cm
Phillips Collection, Washington, USA

Moonrise, Alexandria Bay, 1891 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Moonrise, Alexandria Bay 1891

Oil Painting
$487
Canvas Print
$50.23
SKU: ING-18004
George Inness
Original Size: 76.8 x 115 cm
Public Collection

Stream in the Mountains, c.1850 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Stream in the Mountains c.1850

Oil Painting
$1046
Canvas Print
$53.14
SKU: ING-18145
George Inness
Original Size: 91 x 129 cm
Dallas Museum of Art, Texas, USA

Landscape with Cattle, 1869 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Landscape with Cattle 1869

Oil Painting
$674
Canvas Print
$50.22
SKU: ING-18524
George Inness
Original Size: 50.8 x 76.2 cm
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California, USA

Summer in the Catskills, 1867 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Summer in the Catskills 1867

Oil Painting
$689
Canvas Print
$50.38
SKU: ING-18525
George Inness
Original Size: 50.8 x 77.5 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, USA

Afterglow, 1893 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Afterglow 1893

Oil Painting
$487
Canvas Print
$63.24
SKU: ING-18526
George Inness
Original Size: 76.5 x 64.1 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, USA

A Silver Morning, 1886 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

A Silver Morning 1886

Oil Painting
$578
Canvas Print
$59.23
SKU: ING-18527
George Inness
Original Size: 114.3 x 90.2 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, USA

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