Portrait of George Inness

George Inness Painting Reproductions 7 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

Hackensack Meadows, Sunset, 1859 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Hackensack Meadows, Sunset 1859

Oil Painting
$489
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: ING-9227
George Inness
Original Size: 46 x 66 cm
Historical Society, New York, USA

The Coming Storm, c.1879 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Coming Storm c.1879

Oil Painting
$560
Canvas Print
$79.29
SKU: ING-9228
George Inness
Original Size: 69.2 x 106 cm
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, USA

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

Etretat n.d.

Oil Painting
$485
Canvas Print
$76.16
SKU: ING-9229
George Inness
Original Size: 45.7 x 66.7 cm
Private Collection

Albano, Italy, n.d. by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Albano, Italy n.d.

Oil Painting
$395
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: ING-9230
George Inness
Original Size: 26.7 x 41.3 cm
Private Collection

Sunset on the River, 1867 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Sunset on the River 1867

Oil Painting
$679
Canvas Print
$50.44
SKU: ING-9231
George Inness
Original Size: 77.5 x 115.6 cm
Private Collection

Slow Fading Day, 1880 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Slow Fading Day 1880

Oil Painting
$459
SKU: ING-10550
George Inness
Original Size: 30.4 x 45.7 cm
Private Collection

Shepherd in a Landscape, c.1875 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Shepherd in a Landscape c.1875

Oil Painting
$472
SKU: ING-10551
George Inness
Original Size: 30.4 x 45.7 cm
Private Collection

Sunset on a Meadow, 1878 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Sunset on a Meadow 1878

Oil Painting
$518
SKU: ING-10552
George Inness
Original Size: 40.6 x 61 cm
Private Collection

Sunset, Montclair, 1892 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Sunset, Montclair 1892

Oil Painting
$548
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: ING-12197
George Inness
Original Size: 76.2 x 114.3 cm
Private Collection

Medfield, Massachusetts, n.d. by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Medfield, Massachusetts n.d.

Oil Painting
$463
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: ING-12198
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Across the Hudson Valley in the Foothills of the Catskills, 1868 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Across the Hudson Valley in the Foothills of the ... 1868

Oil Painting
$450
Canvas Print
$62.83
SKU: ING-12199
George Inness
Original Size: 38.1 x 66 cm
Private Collection

The Sun, 1886 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Sun 1886

Oil Painting
$424
Canvas Print
$69.66
SKU: ING-12200
George Inness
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Monte Lucia, Perugia, 1873 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Monte Lucia, Perugia 1873

Oil Painting
$415
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: ING-12201
George Inness
Original Size: 35.3 x 50 cm
Private Collection

The Rainbow in the Berkshire Hills, 1869 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Rainbow in the Berkshire Hills 1869

Oil Painting
$566
Canvas Print
$60.96
SKU: ING-12202
George Inness
Original Size: 50.8 x 76.2 cm
White House Museum, Washington, USA

Midsummer, 1892 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Midsummer 1892

Oil Painting
$548
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: ING-12204
George Inness
Original Size: 76.2 x 114.9 cm
Private Collection

Moonlight, Tarpon Springs, 1892 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Moonlight, Tarpon Springs 1892

Oil Painting
$567
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: ING-12205
George Inness
Original Size: 76.2 x 115.5 cm
Phillips Collection, Washington, USA

Grey day, Goochland, 1884 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Grey day, Goochland 1884

Oil Painting
$375
Canvas Print
$55.11
SKU: ING-12241
George Inness
Original Size: 45.7 x 61 cm
Phillips Collection, Washington, USA

The Monk, 1873 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

The Monk 1873

Oil Painting
$585
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: ING-12242
George Inness
Original Size: 97.8 x 163.8 cm
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, USA

In the Roman Campagna, 1873 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

In the Roman Campagna 1873

Oil Painting
$706
Canvas Print
$56.08
SKU: ING-12243
George Inness
Original Size: 66 x 109.2 cm
Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri, USA

Harvest Moon, 1891 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Harvest Moon 1891

Oil Painting
$566
Canvas Print
$50.56
SKU: ING-12244
George Inness
Original Size: 76.2 x 113 cm
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, USA

Landscape, 1877 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Landscape 1877

Oil Painting
$618
Canvas Print
$83.02
SKU: ING-12245
George Inness
Original Size: 65 x 97.8 cm
Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, USA

Gulf of Mexico, Florida, 1894 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Gulf of Mexico, Florida 1894

Oil Painting
$539
Canvas Print
$83.73
SKU: ING-12246
George Inness
Original Size: 61 x 91.4 cm
Colby College Museum of Art, Maine, USA

Summer Evening, Montclair, New Jersey, 1892 by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Summer Evening, Montclair, New Jersey 1892

Oil Painting
$607
Canvas Print
$82.48
SKU: ING-12247
George Inness
Original Size: 76.2 x 114.3 cm
Colby College Museum of Art, Maine, USA

Winter Evening, Medfield, n.d. by George Inness | Painting Reproduction

Winter Evening, Medfield n.d.

Oil Painting
$453
Canvas Print
$49.87
SKU: ING-12248
George Inness
Original Size: 25.4 x 40.6 cm
Colby College Museum of Art, Maine, USA

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