George Inness and the Visionary LandscapeThe landscape painter George Inness (1825-1894) was one of the foremost American artists of his generation. Born in Newburgh, New York, Inness studied the works of the old masters and, as a young man, painted in the reigning style of the Hudson River School. Within a few years, however, he found himself more attuned to the gestural, expressive approach of the Barbizon School. He greatly admired the free handling of paint and the expression of soulfulness in the works of Theodore Rousseau. Equally important were Inness's philosophical and spiritual concerns. Along with contemporaries Ralph Waldo Emerson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Walt Whitman, Inness studied the writings of the Swedish scientist-turned-mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). During a trip to Italy in the early 1870s, Inness began to structure his landscapes around geometric forms, a development that may have reflected the Swedenborgian idea that the natural world corresponds to the spiritual world and that geometric forms possess spiritual identities. Through these and other compositional devices, Inness created paintings to inspire an almost "religious experience" in his viewers. George Inness and the Visionary Landscape includes forty color reproductions of Inness's most important paintings and presents both a chronological overview of Inness's life and a more focused treatment of the artist's main philosophical and religious preoccupations. It suggests resonances between Inness's visionary landscapes and the concurrent efforts, on the part of the psychologist/philosopher William James (1842-1910), to validate the existence of mystical states of mind. It shows Inness to have anticipated many of the most importanttenets of modernism, an achievement that continues to inspire contemporary audiences. |
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Academy of Design allude American Art Museum American Artists anonymous figures April Art and Artists Art Institute August Boston Daily Boston Evening Transcript brush brushstrokes canvas 30 Castel Gandolfo Church color compositional Conway Meadows Daingerfield daubs described divine Elliott Daingerfield Emanuel Swedenborg exhibition foreground forms George Inness's Gift Hartley Hazy Morning Henry James Henry Ward Beecher Houghton Library Hudson River School identity influx Inness's paintings inspiration James's John Jonathan Scott Hartley Lake Nemi landscape paintings late landscape paintings light Lone Farm Luminist Massachusetts metaphysical Monk Montclair Art Museum Museum of Art mystical National Academy nature nature's Nicolai Cikovsky October Noon oil on canvas Old Barn pictorial Plate Private collection realm Religious Experience represented reprint Rome Saco Ford scene Sheldon Smithsonian American Art Summer Sunset Swedenborgian Swedenborgian doctrine Thomas trees University Press Varieties of Religious viewer visionary Washington Whitman William James Winter York
References to this book
American Painting of the Nineteenth Century: Realism, Idealism, and the ... Barbara Novak Limited preview - 2007 |