George Inness

George Inness 1825-1894

Many rank George Inness with Homer, Eakins and Ryder as a master of nineteenth century American painting. Certainly, he profoundly influenced the landscape painters who followed him.

Inness's early work was very much the prevailing style of the Hudson River School. Several trips to Europe brought him in contact with the work of the Barbizon painters and brought stronger color and a new looseness into his own compositions.

In 1863, he was introduced to the writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg, the Scandinavian theologian. Here at last was the link between the spiritual and real world that he was striving to realize in his work. In his late work, from 1880 on, he achieved the melding of the natural world with the spiritual that he sought, and created landscapes of extraordinary power.

Inness was a frenzied painter. He would work and rework a canvas, sometimes painting an entirely different imaginary scene on top of an almost finished work. While the quality of Inness's output varied widely, His best paintings stand as some of the finest landscapes ever painted in America.

Member:
National Academy of Design

Public Collections:
Art Institute of Chicago
Cincinnati Art Museum
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
National Gallery of Arts, Washington D.C.
Nelson Gallery, Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri
Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.
Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, Connecticut