GEORGE INNESS, PAINTER OF ATMOSPHERE by Joan K. Yanni

GEORGE INNESS, PAINTER OF ATMOSPHERE

by Joan K. Yanni

A new catalogue raisonné of the work of George Inness is being researched by scholar Michael Quick, who was in Rochester last fall to look at MAG's Inness paintings. Quick reaffirmed the authenticity of Early Moonrise in Florida (36.61) and authenticated a painting not currently on view: Sunset, an oil painting on wood. Though Sunset had been attributed to Inness, a question had arisen as to whether it could be the work of his son, George Inness, Jr., whose late paintings resemble those of his father. After examining the work, Quick decided that Sunset was indeed by Inness Sr., probably from around 1878-83, when he was painting sunsets "extremely thinly and boldly, with an emphasis on the movement of the brush."  Quick plans to use pictures of both MAG's paintings in his catalog.

Early Moonrise in Florida is an unusual landscape. It is an atmospheric painting, mysterious and enigmatic. A lone, hooded figure, seen in profile, stands with hands outstretched as though making an offering . The painting has a dreamlike quality.  Low vegetation in dark greens and browns fills the bottom of the canvas, and the red-roofed houses, trees and blue sky seem enveloped in mist. The atmosphere changes to a strange pink/purple at the top of the canvas. Yet the white moon stands out, clearly defined.

George Inness (1825-1894) was born in Newburg, NY, and grew up in New York City and Newark, NJ.  His father was a well-to-do grocer who would have liked his son to follow him into the grocery business, but George was not interested.  His schooling was spotty because of fragile health and bouts of epilepsy, but he was always interested in art. His only training came from an itinerant painter and, for a short time, from Regis Francois Gignoux, a French painter living in New York.  By 1844, when he was only 19, he had one of his works accepted for exhibition at the National Academy of Design.

When Inness was in his twenties, a patron sent him to Europe, and he continued to go there intermittently throughout his life.  His early landscapes reflect the influence of the Hudson River School, particularly Asher B. Durand.  But he was also captivated by the work of Lorraine and Constable, and gradually he broke away from the linear, objective quality of Durand and Cole and began to paint more intimate landscapes and subjective interpretations of nature. The paintings in the first half of his career were naturalistic and luminous, glowing with light and color. They emphasized atmosphere and emotion, not detail.  His discovery of the French Barbizon  School further inspired him to paint a more intimate landscape, rather than the panoramic views of Church and Bierstadt. His brushwork became softer and his outlines more fluid.  Living in a small town on the outskirts of Boston, he painted golden, peaceful pictures, even during the Civil War.  Inness was independent and unique. His work finally acclaimed, he was made a member of the National Academy of Design in 1868.

During Inness's late period, from about 1880 on, he turned further away from realistic, literal depiction of scenery to a more personal depiction of nature. Seldom working outdoors or sketching, he turned out impressions from memory and often repainted a single canvas over and over again.  Many landscapes of this period show a marked preference for the soft effects of early spring or the glowing red tones of autumn. He began to use a cursory, looser brush stroke, and his work became more vaporous and unworldly. Early Moonrise (1892) is from this time.

All through his life Inness had been interested in religion and theology.  He saw spiritual symbolism in nature and attempted to capture it in his work. He was attracted by the beliefs of Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish mystic of the time, who fascinated many nineteenth-century thinkers including Emerson . In his writings, Swedenborg describes his communication with the spiritual world and even with God.  Inness, though he does not cite Swedenborg specifically, published statements on art which concentrated on the importance of an invisible world. The indefinable elements and vagueness in some of his late paintings may be the quality that makes them so fascinating.

In his late years, Inness spent most of his time in his last home in Montclair, New Jersey, with short vacation trips.  Early Moonrise was painted on a trip to Tarpon Springs, Florida.  Of the painting, Michael Quick noted "the softly atmospheric appearance of the trees, sky and horizon appear to be the result of Inness's dragging one layer of paint over another to discover contours.  An example is the nearly white paint applied over the red tree trunks.  It is a many-layered painting with numerous changes of design intended to refine a very delicate effect."

In June, 1894, Inness and his wife made a last visit to Europe. He died suddenly in Scotland; his son says he was on the dock, watching the sunset.

Sources: Curatorial files; E.P. Richardson, A Short History of Painting in America, Harper and Rowe Publishers; of American Art, E. P. Dutton publishers.