One of the most prolific American artists of the second half of the 19th century, George Inness, the author of more than a thousand paintings, like many of his contemporaries-landscape painters, was influenced by the Barbizon and Hudson River schools of painting. He occupied a special place between realism and impressionism: along with clear images of nature, there are blurred landscapes that combine the visible material with the invisible otherworldly.
metmuseum.org
metmuseum.org
Inness was born in 1825 in Newburgh and in his youth worked part-time in a New York firm that produced geographical maps. In the 1840s, he studied at the National Academy of Design and also improved his painting under the guidance of the French artist Francois Gignoux. In 1848, Inness opened his own studio, and three years later went to Europe, where he encountered representatives of the Barbizon school. After returning to the United States, he completed a commission for a railroad company, depicting a train in the Lackawanna Valley, but later avoided industrial themes.
metmuseum.org
metmuseum.org
The artist preferred to work based on sketches and memory. And even when certain places inspired Inness to create specific subjects, he still retreated from reality and focused on the formal side of art. At one time, he was impressed by the views of the Swedish Christian mystic Emanuel Swedenborg, for whom everything material in this world is connected with the spiritual principle. Art became a kind of search for invisible reality for the master.
artic.edu
artic.edu
As a result of this search, hundreds of new works were born in the late period of his work, which are noticeably different from his early works. Today, these "foggy" paintings by Inness are classified as tonalism; another prominent representative of this movement was the American artist James Whistler.
artic.edu
artic.edu
artic.edu
artic.edu
Sources:
metmuseum.org
artic.edu
