Portrait of George Inness

George Inness Painting Reproductions 4 of 9

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.

193 George Inness Paintings

Autumn Meadows, 1869 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Autumn Meadows 1869

Oil Painting
$685
Canvas Print
$84.01
SKU: ING-9155
George Inness
Original Size: 76.2 x 115.6 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Sunrise, 1887 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Sunrise 1887

Oil Painting
$629
Canvas Print
$50.46
SKU: ING-9156
George Inness
Original Size: 76.2 x 114.9 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Delaware Water Gap, 1861 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Delaware Water Gap 1861

Oil Painting
$720
Canvas Print
$54.78
SKU: ING-9157
George Inness
Original Size: 91.4 x 127.6 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

The Rising Storm (Hazy Morning), 1875 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Rising Storm (Hazy Morning) 1875

Oil Painting
$585
SKU: ING-9158
George Inness
Original Size: 76.5 x 114.6 cm
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts, USA

Scene in Perugia, 1875 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Scene in Perugia 1875

Oil Painting
$670
SKU: ING-9159
George Inness
Original Size: 98.4 x 160.3 cm
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts, USA

The Church Spire, 1875 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Church Spire 1875

Oil Painting
$575
Canvas Print
$50.89
SKU: ING-9160
George Inness
Original Size: 51.1 x 76.5 cm
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts, USA

Villa Borghese, Rome, a.1857 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Villa Borghese, Rome a.1857

Oil Painting
$372
Canvas Print
$50.46
SKU: ING-9161
George Inness
Original Size: 10.8 x 17.8 cm
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts, USA

Lake Nemi, a.1874 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Lake Nemi a.1874

Oil Painting
$422
SKU: ING-9162
George Inness
Original Size: 30.8 x 46 cm
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts, USA

Lake Nemi, 1872 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Lake Nemi 1872

Oil Painting
$637
Canvas Print
$50.46
SKU: ING-9163
George Inness
Original Size: 75.5 x 114 cm
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts, USA

Blue Niagara, 1884 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Blue Niagara 1884

Oil Painting
$725
SKU: ING-9164
George Inness
Original Size: 122.8 x 183.5 cm
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts, USA

Sunset Landscape, Medfield, 1861 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Sunset Landscape, Medfield 1861

Oil Painting
$556
Canvas Print
$50.46
SKU: ING-9165
George Inness
Original Size: 71.4 x 101.9 cm
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts, USA

The Lackawanna Valley, c.1856 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Lackawanna Valley c.1856

Oil Painting
$672
Canvas Print
$51.31
SKU: ING-9166
George Inness
Original Size: 86 x 127.5 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA

Lake Albano, Sunset, c.1874 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Lake Albano, Sunset c.1874

Oil Painting
$660
SKU: ING-9167
George Inness
Original Size: 76.5 x 114.4 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA

View of the Tiber near Perugia, c.1872/74 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

View of the Tiber near Perugia c.1872/74

Oil Painting
$699
Canvas Print
$50.46
SKU: ING-9168
George Inness
Original Size: 98 x 161.5 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA

The Delaware Water Gap, a.1857 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Delaware Water Gap a.1857

Oil Painting
$756
Canvas Print
$83.83
SKU: ING-9169
George Inness
Original Size: 90.5 x 138.5 cm
National Gallery, London, United Kingdom

Golden Glow (The Golden Sun), 1894 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Golden Glow (The Golden Sun) 1894

Oil Painting
$598
Canvas Print
$83.66
SKU: ING-9170
George Inness
Original Size: 61 x 91.4 cm
Ball State University Museum of Art, Indiana, USA

Montclair, New Jersey, c.1889 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Montclair, New Jersey c.1889

Oil Painting
$503
Canvas Print
$62.52
SKU: ING-9171
George Inness
Original Size: 40.6 x 60.9 cm
Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Maine, USA

Sunrise, 1887 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Sunrise 1887

Oil Painting
$614
Canvas Print
$84.55
SKU: ING-9172
George Inness
Original Size: 76.3 x 114.5 cm
Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, USA

Harvest Time, 1861 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Harvest Time 1861

Oil Painting
$610
Canvas Print
$55.34
SKU: ING-9173
George Inness
Original Size: 56.5 x 76.8 cm
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, USA

A Winter Sky, 1866 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

A Winter Sky 1866

Oil Painting
$631
Canvas Print
$55.62
SKU: ING-9174
George Inness
Original Size: 56 x 77.5 cm
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, USA

In the Woods, 1866 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

In the Woods 1866

Oil Painting
$401
Canvas Print
$50.46
SKU: ING-9175
George Inness
Original Size: 30.2 x 22.2 cm
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, USA

Approaching Storm from the Alban Hills, 1871 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Approaching Storm from the Alban Hills 1871

Oil Painting
$699
Canvas Print
$50.48
SKU: ING-9176
George Inness
Original Size: 73.8 x 113 cm
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, USA

The Wheat Field, c.1875/77 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Wheat Field c.1875/77

Oil Painting
$561
Canvas Print
$50.48
SKU: ING-9177
George Inness
Original Size: 50.8 x 76 cm
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, USA

Fleecy Clouds, 1881 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Fleecy Clouds 1881

Oil Painting
$765
Canvas Print
$50.46
SKU: ING-9178
George Inness
Original Size: 25.5 x 51 cm
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, USA

Top