American Landscape Artist George Inness

February 18, 2009 11:37 AM

19th century American landscape artist George Inness.

19th century American landscape artist George Inness. His work was influenced, in turn, by 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.

His early works are rich depictions of rural landscapes.

His mature works featured more abstracted handling of shapes, softened edges, and saturated color, with a mystical, ethereal, and spiritual component. "Of particular interest to Inness was the notion that everything in nature had a correspondential relationship with something spiritual" and the idea of consciousness as a "stream of thought"

posted by ecorrocio (7 comments total)

Look upon New Jersey, ye mighty, and despair.
posted by nasreddin at 11:48 AM on February 18

Painter of Light!!!1!1!
posted by speedo at 12:12 PM on February 18

I love this post. Especially because I am missing New England today.
posted by LarryC at 1:27 PM on February 18

I wonder whether 19th century viewers would have shared my impression that there's a melancholy note in those sunlit valleys.

The digital images don't come close to reproducing Inness' breathtaking, luminous greens. It's always a treat to come across one of his paintings.
posted by pernoctalian at 3:43 PM on February 18

Thank you so much for this post! I love Inness.

Here is a photograph taken by Metafilter's own pjern that strongly reminds me of the work of Inness.
posted by Tube at 4:22 PM on February 18

Just as i was about to snark "aintcha sick of those HDR landscapes with leaden skies?"

(Tube: That's one is of the less offensive examples)
posted by marvin at 8:03 PM on February 18

That's *not* HDR, marvin :)
posted by pjern at 7:53 PM on February 21