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INNESS, GEORGE. 



and while his temperament was almost purely 

 emotional, it was curiously tinged with a skep- 

 ticism which held him aloof from implicit reli- 

 ance upon the dicta of others. ' While pre- 

 Raphaelitism is like a measure worm trying to 

 compass the infinite circumference, impression- 

 ism is the sloth enwrapped in its own eternal 

 dullness." Such was his own summing up. 



It is necessary to lay some stress upon these 

 mental characteristics, for the outward life of 

 this impassioned painter was uneventful, and far 

 from self-illuminating. About 1855 he took up 

 his residence in a suburb of Brooklyn, where he 

 gained the friendship of Henry Ward Beecher, 

 Simeon Draper, Fletcher Harper, and Samuel 

 Colman. His studio was in New York. In 1859 

 he was attracted to Boston, and made his home 

 in a suburb, Medfield, where news of the war 

 reached him and excited him intensely, for he 

 was an ardent abolitionist. 



In 1864, on the advice of a friend. Marcus 

 Spring, he returned to New York, living in En- 

 glewood, N. J., until 1867, when he removed to 

 Brooklyn. In the winter he painted in his 

 studio, and in the summer he sketched in New 

 Jersey, New York, or Pennsylvania, as the case 

 might be, rarely venturing far afield. In 1867 

 his "American Sunset" was selected for exhi- 

 bition at the Paris Exposition. In 1868 he was 

 elected to membership in the National Academy 

 of Design. When he returned from Italy, in 

 1875, he found the ferment of young blood at 

 work in American art, and a few years later, 

 after the formation of the Society of Amer- 

 ican Artists, he was quick to sympathize with the 

 spirit of independence underlying this movement, 

 although his views of theories and methods re- 

 mained his own. Up to the early eighties Mr. 

 Inness had earned the appreciation of artists, a 

 few amateurs, and a few collectors, but his strug- 

 gle with the sterner facts of existence had been 

 often an exhausting one, and there were times 

 when a choice seemed forced upon him that 

 meant an abandonment of his art. Fortunately, 

 popular appreciation of his splendid genius was 

 not deferred until his death. The increased in- 

 terest in art which began in the seventies, and 

 was strengthened by the homecoming of well- 

 trained and enthusiastic painters, by the Cen- 

 tennial Exhibition, and by other forces, shed a 

 new light upon George Inness's work, and an ex- 

 hibition of his collected paintings at the Ameri- 

 can art galleries in 1884 proved a triumphant 

 demonstration of his title to the first place in 

 American landscape art. That exhibition in- 

 cluded pictures which dated back to 1857. It 

 showed the softened splendor of sunset radiance 

 upon sky, water, and foliage, the mellow haze 

 where sunbeams filter through the branches and 

 undergrowth, the subtle atmospheric effects seen 

 in dewy meadows at sunrise, the opalescence of 

 woodlands in early spring, with dreamy twilights, 

 and tender morning landscapes, modest home 

 scenes made pictorial, and the threatening ap- 

 proach and passionate sweep of summer storms. 

 There were examples of the mystical vein which 

 produced pictures like his ' Valley of the Shadow 

 of Death," and it was possible to study his success 

 in grandiose compositions like his " Mount Wash- 

 ington" and his well-remembered "Niagara," 

 owned by the late Roswell Smith. 



The popular and, it may be added, the com- 

 mercial success which crowned the last decade of 

 the artist's life was powerless to affect his art. 

 Relieved of all disturbing influences, he painted 

 with a yet more strenuous and persistent devo- 

 tion. In his later years he gave up his studio in 

 the city and passed his days in painting out of 

 doors or in his studio at his home in Montclair, 

 N. J., where he lived after his return from Italy 

 in 1875. His persistent energy is perhaps illus- 

 trated in training his left hand to use the brush 

 when his right was injured by an accident a 

 few years before his death. With full oppor- 

 tunity for devotion to the art which lay next his 

 heart, with literary recreations (for privately he 

 wrote much upon 'art, especially in its spiritual 

 aspects), and with the society of his family, his 

 last years were passed happily and with the 

 knowledge that he had nobly earned a meed of 

 appreciation rarely bestowed. 



The death of the greatest American landscape 

 painter took from us a most impressive individu- 

 ality. He followed no one else, he was like no 

 one else. Imperfectly trained at the outset, he 

 was often vulnerable to technical criticisms. A 

 prey to moods, swayed as he constantly was by 

 intensest feeling, blind at times to balance and 

 discrimination, his results were of necessity un- 

 even. Sometimes a masterpiece was the fruit of 

 a first painting, sometimes a masterpiece was 

 ruined because the artist carried it too far. 

 These were the accompaniments of his genius, 

 but they never hid its flame. In Paris, with its 

 training derived from generations of academic 

 teachings and independent reactions, the work 

 of George Inness made a profound impression, 

 and a Frenchman, Benjamin-Constant, compared 

 him to the French masters of landscape art. He 

 was a theorist, but his theories did no evil to his 

 art. In his conversation and writings his love 

 for the doctrines of Swedenborg colored his views 

 of art, but with a few early exceptions he never 

 spoke in parables with his brush. His extraor- 

 dinary sensitiveness to all phases of natural 

 beauty, his rare feeling for tone and color, and 

 his splendid virility in execution safeguarded 

 him against inartistic sins. The Memorial Ex- 

 hibition silenced the indifferent with the con- 

 sciousness of a master's presence, and even by 

 itself left no room for doubt. The range and 

 indomitable power of George Inness's art have 

 given him a place among the great landscape 

 painters of this century. 



Examples of Mr. Inness's art may be seen in 

 the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the 

 Corcoran Gallery in Washington, the gallery of 

 the Brooklyn Historical Society, the Chicago 

 Art Institute, and the Century and Union League 

 Clubs, New York ; but a clearer idea of his work 

 can be acquired from the study of private col- 

 lections like those of Thomas B. Clarke, of New 

 York, James W. Ellsworth and Potter Palm- 

 er, of Chicago, Thomas Wigglesworth and Mrs. 

 S. D. Warren, of Boston, and Sir W. C. Van 

 Home and R. B. Angus, of Montreal. His bibli- 

 ography is curiously limited. Aside from news- 

 paper articles, it consists for the most part of a 

 report of a conversation with the artist pub- 

 lished by George W. Sheldon in "Harper's 

 Magazine " for February, 1878, an article by 

 Charles de Kay in the " Century," a brief biog- 



