Portrait of George Inness

George Inness Painting Reproductions 6 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

Niagara Falls, 1885 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Niagara Falls 1885

Oil Painting
$561
Canvas Print
$50.89
SKU: ING-9203
George Inness
Original Size: 40.2 x 60.9 cm
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, USA

September Afternoon, 1887 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

September Afternoon 1887

Oil Painting
$676
Canvas Print
$59.47
SKU: ING-9204
George Inness
Original Size: 95.1 x 73.6 cm
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, USA

Sundown, 1884 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Sundown 1884

Oil Painting
$688
Canvas Print
$50.89
SKU: ING-9205
George Inness
Original Size: 77.8 x 114.2 cm
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, USA

Summer, Montclair, 1877 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Summer, Montclair 1877

Oil Painting
$456
Canvas Print
$103.38
SKU: ING-9206
George Inness
Original Size: 106.2 x 85.7 cm
Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, USA

The Valley of the Olives, 1867 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Valley of the Olives 1867

Oil Painting
$699
Canvas Print
$50.92
SKU: ING-9207
George Inness
Original Size: 76.3 x 114.5 cm
The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, USA

Summer Days, 1857 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Summer Days 1857

Oil Painting
$749
Canvas Print
$56.52
SKU: ING-9208
George Inness
Original Size: 103.5 x 143 cm
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid, Spain

Massachusetts Landscape, 1865 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Massachusetts Landscape 1865

Oil Painting
$631
SKU: ING-9209
George Inness
Original Size: 61 x 91.4 cm
Private Collection

Ariccia, 1874 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Ariccia 1874

Oil Painting
$709
SKU: ING-9210
George Inness
Original Size: 67.3 x 144.3 cm
Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, USA

Apple Orchard, 1892 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Apple Orchard 1892

Oil Painting
$625
SKU: ING-9211
George Inness
Original Size: 76.2 x 114.6 cm
Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan, USA

Summer, n.d. by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Summer n.d.

Oil Painting
$399
SKU: ING-9212
George Inness
Original Size: 20.3 x 30.5 cm
Private Collection

Sunlit Pasture, n.d. by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Sunlit Pasture n.d.

Oil Painting
$485
SKU: ING-9213
George Inness
Original Size: 40.6 x 55.9 cm
Private Collection

Sunset in the Old Orchard, 1894 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Sunset in the Old Orchard 1894

Oil Painting
$636
Canvas Print
$50.89
SKU: ING-9214
George Inness
Original Size: 76.2 x 114.3 cm
Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, USA

Wood Gatherers, An Autumn Afternoon, 1891 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Wood Gatherers, An Autumn Afternoon 1891

Oil Painting
$554
Canvas Print
$50.92
SKU: ING-9215
George Inness
Original Size: 76.2 x 114.6 cm
The Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts, USA

Landscape, 1846 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Landscape 1846

Oil Painting
$383
Canvas Print
$50.89
SKU: ING-9216
George Inness
Original Size: 20.2 x 37.5 cm
Private Collection

Indian Summer, 1891 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Indian Summer 1891

Oil Painting
$632
SKU: ING-9217
George Inness
Original Size: 76.8 x 115.6 cm
Private Collection

Sundown Brilliance, n.d. by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Sundown Brilliance n.d.

Oil Painting
$561
SKU: ING-9218
George Inness
Original Size: 50.8 x 76.2 cm
Private Collection

Landscape, 1860 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Landscape 1860

Oil Painting
$497
SKU: ING-9219
George Inness
Original Size: 41.2 x 61 cm
National Academy Museum, New York, USA

The Alban Hills, 1873 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Alban Hills 1873

Oil Painting
$546
SKU: ING-9220
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, USA

The Rainbow, c.1878/79 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Rainbow c.1878/79

Oil Painting
$563
Canvas Print
$51.19
SKU: ING-9221
George Inness
Original Size: 76.2 x 114.3 cm
Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana, USA

Sunshine After Storm or Sunset, 1875 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Sunshine After Storm or Sunset 1875

Oil Painting
$540
SKU: ING-9222
George Inness
Original Size: 51 x 76.5 cm
Private Collection

Old Elm at Medfield, n.d. by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Old Elm at Medfield n.d.

Oil Painting
$526
SKU: ING-9223
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Coming Thunderstorm (Approaching Storm), 1868 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Coming Thunderstorm (Approaching Storm) 1868

Oil Painting
$532
SKU: ING-9224
George Inness
Original Size: 42.5 x 61 cm
Private Collection

Roman Campagna, 1858 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Roman Campagna 1858

Oil Painting
$554
SKU: ING-9225
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut, USA

Sunset on the Passaic, 1891 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Sunset on the Passaic 1891

Oil Painting
$546
SKU: ING-9226
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Honolulu Academy of Arts, Hawaii, USA

Top