Comments on: George Inness http://www.linesandcolors.com/2006/12/20/george-inness/ Tue, 2 Dec 2008 22:04:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: ron http://www.linesandcolors.com/2006/12/20/george-inness/#comment-577947 ron Wed, 17 Sep 2008 04:58:52 +0000 http://www.linesandcolors.com/2006/12/20/george-inness/#comment-577947 pure genious pure genious

]]> By: Charley Parker http://www.linesandcolors.com/2006/12/20/george-inness/#comment-18218 Charley Parker Thu, 21 Dec 2006 15:44:27 +0000 http://www.linesandcolors.com/2006/12/20/george-inness/#comment-18218 Daniel, Thanks for your preceptive, and poetic, comments. My guess (and it's only that, of course) is that he probably saw the scene much like this in terms of composition, and captured it on location, but added his own "poetic" colors and lighting in his final work in the studio. Daniel,

Thanks for your preceptive, and poetic, comments.

My guess (and it’s only that, of course) is that he probably saw the scene much like this in terms of composition, and captured it on location, but added his own “poetic” colors and lighting in his final work in the studio.

]]> By: Daniel van Benthuysen http://www.linesandcolors.com/2006/12/20/george-inness/#comment-18169 Daniel van Benthuysen Wed, 20 Dec 2006 23:10:39 +0000 http://www.linesandcolors.com/2006/12/20/george-inness/#comment-18169 I don't think that the poetic quality in the late work of Inness is any more difficult to describe than it is to experience. I enjoy the fact that he is less concerned with the specifics of detail and more concerned with the ephemeral glow of a certain late afternoon (often autumnal) light. He has invested landscapes with the same play of complimentary colors (reds verus greens) and softened edges that Giorgione invested in figures five centuries earlier in Venice and, like Giorgione, he seems to enjoy teasing us with a suggestion of mystery or, as you suggest, something waiting to be revealed. The leaves on the little sapling at left in "Early Evening, Montclair" seem to be spun of the same mystical substance as that glowing reflection on the clouds. And here as in so many of Inness' paintings one finds colors like the emerald green in his foreground, a color that seems not to be so much obesrved as perhaps symbolic (and he uses it again and again in his late paintings the way a poet enjoys using a favorite metaphor.) One looks at a late painting by Inness and one wonders, "Did he really see this? Was there for a moment such a glow on the clouds in early evening? Did the light really hit the trunk of the tree that way? At what point did the visual recording of his experience end and the lyrical poetry of his describing it begin? I don’t think that the poetic quality in the late work of Inness is any more difficult to describe than it is to experience. I enjoy the fact that he is less concerned with the specifics of detail and more concerned with the ephemeral glow of a certain late afternoon (often autumnal) light. He has invested landscapes with the same play of complimentary colors (reds verus greens) and softened edges that Giorgione invested in figures five centuries earlier in Venice and, like Giorgione, he seems to enjoy teasing us with a suggestion of mystery or, as you suggest, something waiting to be revealed. The leaves on the little sapling at left in “Early Evening, Montclair” seem to be spun of the same mystical substance as that glowing reflection on the clouds. And here as in so many of Inness’ paintings one finds colors like the emerald green in his foreground, a color that seems not to be so much obesrved as perhaps symbolic (and he uses it again and again in his late paintings the way a poet enjoys using a favorite metaphor.) One looks at a late painting by Inness and one wonders, “Did he really see this? Was there for a moment such a glow on the clouds in early evening? Did the light really hit the trunk of the tree that way? At what point did the visual recording of his experience end and the lyrical poetry of his describing it begin?

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