“The Valley,” by George Inness (1825-1894), ca. 1873-74, oil, 15 x 26. Collection Judith and William Turner

The most obvious physical characteristic one notices about paintings by George Inness is that the canvases are dominated by soft, thinly painted passages of color. In most of his later paintings, especially, approximately 70-percent of the surface is covered with oil paint that has been scrubbed with a brush so that the layers of color add depth, richness, and vibration. Moreover, the soft edges created by the action of the brush cause the trees, buildings, figures, and vegetation to flow together in a seamless space. In the remaining portions of the canvases, heavy applications of oil color were used to describe the light piercing through the trees or hovering over a shadowed pathway, but no matter how much impasto there might be on the canvases one’s attention is inevitably pulled into the shadows.


“Autumn in Montclair,” by George Inness (1825-1894), oil, 29 x 36 5/8. Collection Mrs. and Mrs. Frank Martucci. Photo: Peter Jacobs

In some Inness landscapes, cool grays were lightly glazed across warm under paintings to create the soft light; and in others a brush loaded with warm earth colors was twisted and turned to record the branches of a tree being blown by a strong wind. What is hard to determine is just how Inness superimposed those gestured, thinly painted branches and architectural forms over the heavier applications of ochres, yellows, reds and blues that catch the seamless bands of light radiating from a setting sunlight. Did he carefully work the thick paint around the ghostly forms, or did he wait until the oil paint in the sky was completely dry before lightly brushing grey forms over it?


“Woodland Interior,” by George Inness, 1893, oil, Private collection

Standing next to the Inness paintings makes it easier to see the small buildings, dark figures, rising smoke, resting animals, and distant streams that are often hard to recognize in reproductions of his paintings. It seems these punctuations were added and subtracted from the paintings in much the same way writers revise the lines of their poems. Some add emphasis while others leave us wondering. Inness obviously changed his mind as he worked with these imagined elements, constantly revising his description of the space and light in a landscape as if nature spoke to him while he painted her portrait.


“The Trout Brook,” by George Inness, oil, 30 x 45. Collection The Newark Museum, Newark, NJ

Inness was a visionary artist whose renderings of nature were profoundly personal and inspired by his belief in Swedenborgianism, a philosophy which embraced the connection between the spiritual and material worlds. Inness referred to this spiritual dimension as “the reality of the unseen.” His considerable contribution to American art at the turn of the century greatly influenced 20th-century art movements, and brought recognition to American artists in their own right as peers of their European counterparts.

The special exhibition on view now is the first to be held in the Montclair Art Museum’s George Inness Gallery (until April 1, 2012), the only space in the world dedicated to the work of George Inness (1825–1894). Inness spent the last nine years of his life in Montclair, from 1885 onward, and the town of Montclair was frequently the subject of his art. This exhibition brings together ten works from mostly private collections in the Montclair area. For more information, visit www.montclair-art.com.