Born in Newburgh, New York in 1925, George Inness was raised in New York City and Newark, New Jersey. His early life was disrupted by severe illness, and he had as a result little formal academic or artistic education. In Newark, he studied with the itinerant painter John Jesse Barker, and in New York, probably 1843, with French-born landscape painter, Regis Francois Gignoux. Inness visited Italy in 1850 and France in 1853. It was here that he studied French Barbizon landscape painting, especially admiring the work of the most radical or Barbizon artists, Theodore Rousseau (1812-1867), who had settled in the small village (Babizon) near the Forest of Fontainebleau southeast of Paris. This school, which flourished beginning in the late 1840’s, had devoted itself to landscape painting that as natural, did not adhere to academic conventions, and that was in effect a form of art for art’s sake without moralizing attitudes being laid over the scenes depicted. In 1864, he was introduced to the teaching of Emanuel Swedenborg. By 1867, the painter was very much influenced by the Swedish mystic. Swedenborg had been a scientist, and then turned himself to spiritual matters after an experienced in 1745 in which he claimed that heaven had opened to him. His goal thereafter was to convey to humankind his insights into the spiritual world. Inness became a devoted follower and the impact of this devotion on his art can be understood through the words of a contemporary biographer who wrote in Harper’s Weekly in 1867: “In his religious faith he is a disciple of Swedenborg, and believes that all material objects in form and color have a spiritual significance and correxpondence.” In other words, the subjects of Inness’ paintings could be seen in a pantheistic manner, with God visible in the details of his creation. It becomes religious faith that determined the increasingly allusive, expressive, and almost mystical character of his later art.
Inness lived in Italy from 1870 to 1874 and in France briefly in 1875. When he returned to America in 1876, he settled in Montclair, New Jersey. His later works are characterized by a loose manner, as in this painting, in which very subtle harmonies of color, along with broad treatment of light and shade play a key role. Art historian Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr. wrote about the artist in 1986 that “what these paintings seem to depict is not so much discrete things—trees, fields, figures, buildings—show in particular configurations, but something that subsumes or in potentiality, contains them. It is something—neither matter, vapor, nor tonal key of color, but all of them together—in which normally solid objects have the property of yielding softness and the nominally atmospheric has palpable and weight substance.” In his paintings, the pigment is thinly and atmospherically applied. Forms are hazy and nearly dissolved, with only the subtlest of indications for the ground, the trunks of the trees, their leaves, and the distinct elements of the painting are often defined by celestial light.
Inness lived in Montclair for the remainder of his life, but traveled widely, for the sake of his health. He died on a trip to Scotland in 1894.
Born in Newburgh, New York in 1925, George Inness was raised in New York City and Newark, New Jersey. His early life was disrupted by severe illness, and he had as a result little formal academic or artistic education. In Newark, he studied with the itinerant painter John Jesse Barker, and in New York, probably 1843, with French-born landscape painter, Regis Francois Gignoux. Inness visited Italy in 1850 and France in 1853. It was here that he studied French Barbizon landscape painting, especially admiring the work of the most radical or Barbizon artists, Theodore Rousseau (1812-1867), who had settled in the small village (Babizon) near the Forest of Fontainebleau southeast of Paris. This school, which flourished beginning in the late 1840’s, had devoted itself to landscape painting that as natural, did not adhere to academic conventions, and that was in effect a form of art for art’s sake without moralizing attitudes being laid over the scenes depicted. In 1864, he was introduced to the teaching of Emanuel Swedenborg. By 1867, the painter was very much influenced by the Swedish mystic. Swedenborg had been a scientist, and then turned himself to spiritual matters after an experienced in 1745 in which he claimed that heaven had opened to him. His goal thereafter was to convey to humankind his insights into the spiritual world. Inness became a devoted follower and the impact of this devotion on his art can be understood through the words of a contemporary biographer who wrote in Harper’s Weekly in 1867: “In his religious faith he is a disciple of Swedenborg, and believes that all material objects in form and color have a spiritual significance and correxpondence.” In other words, the subjects of Inness’ paintings could be seen in a pantheistic manner, with God visible in the details of his creation. It becomes religious faith that determined the increasingly allusive, expressive, and almost mystical character of his later art.