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16/9/2003

George Inness

National Academy of Design, New York

George Inness and the Visionary Landscape serves as both a retrospective of the artist's work and a focused examination of some of the most important issues and ideas that guided him as he presented a new conception of the visionary landscape. Featuring forty of Inness's most beautiful landscape paintings, the exhibition traces the artist's career from his early Hudson River School period of the 1850's to the broadly painted, gestural compositions of the 1870's, to the hazy, mystical works of the 1880's and early 1890's. The exhibition explores how Inness derived insight from the doctrines of the Swedish scientist-turned-mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), doctrines that resonated throughout mid-nineteenth century American culture. It also reveals Inness to have been one of the finest painters of his generation, an artist constantly in search of new pictorial techniques to serve as new forms of expression. It marks the first presentation of Inness's work in New York in eighteen years.

Born in Newburgh, New York in 1825, Inness received little formal artistic training. The inclusion of his work in the National Academy of Design's Annual Exhibition of 1844 marked the beginning of a lifelong affiliation with the Academy. Already painting with a more gestural technique than his Hudson River School colleagues, the young Inness found himself attracted to the broadly conceived landscapes of the Barbizon School, which he likely saw during a trip to France in1853-54.

During the 1860's Inness became increasingly devoted to the writings of Swedenborg, whose concepts, such as the existence of a direct correspondence between all things of the natural and spiritual realms, inspired Inness's evocation of the existence of a spiritual realm through compositional structures. During the late 1870's and 1880's, Inness created some of his most expressive paintings, leaving visible traces of his brushstrokes on the surface of the canvas, thereby reinforcing our awareness of his experience as creator of the landscape. The union of empirical pictorial freedom and highly enigmatic, visionary spaces and forms emerges dramatically in these late paintings.

Inness's devotion to Swedenborgian doctrine, and his desire to stimulate new ways of looking at the world led to the creation of a new form of the visionary landscape. These innovative stylistic contributions, coupled with his studies in psychology and philosophy, distinguish Inness from his American contemporaries. His work is both technically accomplished and metaphysical and anticipated many of the most important tenets of modernism that continue to inspire contemporary audiences.

George Inness and the Visionary Landscape is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue. It is generously funded by the Lehman Foundation, the Frank and Katherine Martucci Endowment for the Arts, and travels to the San Diego Museum of Art from January 24 – April 18, 2004.

National Academy of Design
1083 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10128
Tel: 212-369-4880
Fax: 212-360-6795

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