George Inness began painting in the Hudson River School style, but his exposure to the Barbizon painters, and his interest in the presence of the divine, led to the exploration of a more unified and harmonious atmosphere of light and shadow. The quiet calm and spiritual contemplation in his work became signatures of the new movement of Tonalism. Along with James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Inness would influence many of the artists who would embrace that movement, including Leon Dabo and Dwight W. Tryon, both of whom are included in the Muskegon Museum of Art’s permanent collection.
Read More
Inness was born to a farming family in Newburgh, New York, one of thirteen children. He began his first art study with an itinerant painter in 1839 and subsequently moved to New York City to work as map engraver. He then studied with the French painter Régis François Gignoux (a Hudson River painter specializing in snow scenes) while taking courses at the National Academy of Design. At the Academy he was strongly influenced by the paintings of Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand. Inness opened his studio in New York City in 1844 and traveled to Europe several times in the 1850s to paint and study.
In France, Inness was exposed to the Barbizon school of painting which he quickly adapted into his own personal style. Due to his interest in the notion of the connection between the real world and the spiritual one, perhaps the greatest influence on Inness’s work was his introduction to the writings of Emmanuel Swedenbourg, a Scandinavian theologian, in 1863. The Swedenborgian sect believed a spiritual essence of vitalizing and harmonizing energy flowed through the material world of appearances, an idea that resonated deeply with Inness’ artistic goals. As his work matured, his focus increasingly looked to the natural and agrarian landscape, even as his aesthetic became more abstract, with less distinguishable forms and saturated colors.
Plagued with epilepsy his entire life, Inness died in 1894 while on a recuperative trip in Scotland, having enjoyed an artistic career filled with critical and commercial success.