George Inness

I mentioned George in my last post. Really a huge influence on my painting and a towering figure of 19th century painting. Here's a few of his works:

From Wikipedia:    George Inness (May 1, 1825 – August 3, 1894) was an influential American landscape painter. His work was influenced, in turn, by that of the old masters, the Hudson River school, the Barbizon school, and, finally, by the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg, whose spiritualism found vivid expression in the work of Inness' maturity. Often called "the father of American landscape painting," Inness is best known for these mature works that not only exemplified the Tonalist movement but also displayed an original and uniquely American style.

Before I came across Inness I was influences more by Impressionism. A movement that really caught on again in the 80's and 90's and is now a huge part of the modern landscape painters vocabulary to the point I think that many painters are not even aware of it's pervasive influence.

George Inness was to foremost painter of the late 19th and early 20th century movement called Tonalism. From Wikipedia: 

Tonalism was an artistic style that emerged in the 1880s when American artists began to paint landscape forms with an overall tone of colored atmosphere or mist. Between 1880 and 1915, dark, neutral hues such as gray, brown or blue, often dominated compositions by artists associated with the style. During the late 1890s, American art critics began to use the term "tonal" to describe these works. Two of the leading associated painters were George Inness and James McNeill Whistler.

I'll write more about Tonalism in the future as I have many thoughts about the style that I'd like to share. In a nutshell for now I'll say that to me, it's about creating an evocative, atmospheric approach to the landscape. 

I never have tried to ape George Inness but to any artist familiar with his art the debts I owe him are apparent and I never shy away from acknowledging his great contribution to the art of landscape painting. A contribution that frankly has not made it's way into the minds and hearts of the modern art lover in any way near what George Inness and the modern art viewer deserves