GEORGE INNESS 
 
 BY ELLIOTT DAINGERFIELD 
 
y: 
 
THE DELAWARE VALLEY 
 THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART 
 
GEORGE INNESS 
 
 THE MAN AND HIS ART 
 
 BY 
 
 Elliott Daingerfield 
 
 New York 
 PRIVATELY PRINTED 
 
 MCMXI 
 
Copyright, 191 1 
 by 
 
 Frederic Fairchild Sherman 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 The Delaware Valley .... Frontispiece 
 
 Etretat Page 8 
 
 Approaching Storm i6 
 
 The Rainbow 24 
 
 The Coa^ of Cornwall ''26 
 
 Storm on the Delaware .... ''30 
 
 The Afterglow ''3^ 
 
 Sunset at Montclair """"34 
 
 Silvery Morning 3^ 
 
 The Mill Pond ''40 
 
 The Wood Gatherers ''48 
 
 Sunset ......... ''50 
 
TO MY WIFE 
 
Art is the endeavor on the part of 
 Mind (Mind being the creative factor) 
 to express through the senses ideas of 
 the great principles of unity. 
 
 George Inness. 
 
GEORGE INNESS 
 
 PART ONE 
 
 T is no part of my intention in this 
 work to attempt a biography of 
 George Inness,the great landscape 
 painter — that mu^ be left for a 
 stronger hand — my wish is, rath? 
 er, to recall the man as I knew him, 
 and I shall have much to say of his habits of work, 
 of incident concerning him, with such anecdote as 
 may illu^rate the point at hand; and to make a 
 record, so far as I may, of very much that he said 
 of his own theories of work, his principles (the 
 phrase was a familiar one with him) and his ideas 
 of art, while the memory of these things — the very- 
 words — is ^rong upon me. Records of this sort 
 have a value in certain quarters only less real than 
 the work of a man, and in the case of George In? 
 ness, whose legacy of work to the American peo? 
 pie is veritable treasure, greater in value than the 
 general public knows, bearing a di^indlion that is 
 peculiarly its own, singularly charadieri^ic in its 
 
 7 
 
opulence of our own people, the quality of value 
 re^s upon the view we get and the knowledge 
 we gain of the mental habits, the attitude and the 
 craft of a man whose gift, in my opinion, was 
 more nearly genius than that of any other of our 
 painters. 
 
 In addressing myself to this work, I encounter 
 the difEculty of knowing ju^ how corredlly those 
 who have known a man may judge his work. 
 This is a que^ion yet open, and ever will be so 
 long as human affedlions and beliefs hold sway 
 over judgment. The personality is a powerftil 
 agent when in close communication, and time 
 and di^ance each exert an influence, often forc^ 
 ing a change or readju^ment of view. I may there* 
 fore be open to criticism for overpraise, since it 
 was my privilege to know Mr. Inness very well. 
 
 Of the work of George Inness we can have 
 neither too intimate nor too complete a knowk 
 edge, for in his name the corner ^one of Ameri. 
 can landscape art rei^s. 
 
 He was born when much of vital import was 
 transpiring in the world of art, though in America 
 but little was being done. The date of his birth is 
 given as May ist, 1825. He said that he was about 
 fourteen when he fir^ began the i^udy that was 
 to be life work for him, and it was at a time when 
 
 8 
 
ETRETAT 
 COLLECTION OF LOUIS EtTLINGER 
 
the opportunities were, at the be^, but feeble for 
 its wise development, and he found himself, even 
 as a boy, at variance with the painters of the day. 
 The short period of i^udy that he had with one 
 Regis Gignoux, a French landscape painter of 
 little note, was of no moment in the formative 
 development of a nature as independent as was 
 Inness's. To mention it at all, is to give what meed 
 of praise there may be in it to the only man who 
 could ever claim to be the ma^er of George Inness, 
 and doubtless, it is the be^ claim the Frenchman 
 has upon fame. 
 
 The early efforts of Inness brought him noth^ 
 ing but blame— ''They told me I would never suc^ 
 ceed, that I was but a fool to try to set myself 
 again^ the rules laid down by my betters, and if 
 I did not paint my trees brown in the foreground, 
 I was sure to fail"— this, he said, was the con^ant 
 criticism his work met with when he went out 
 to paint with others. We know what that group 
 of men were doing, and the influence under which 
 they worked, but we shall not get a right view of 
 Inness's art unless we glance, however sHghtly, 
 at the condition of painting in the world at large 
 when he began to make his flri^ ventures with 
 pencil and brush. 
 
 It is not to be doubted that in France the tenden? 
 
 9 
 
cics toward a great landscape art were i^ronger 
 tKan elsewhere. Whatever the influence of such 
 a man as Turner, it can not be compared with 
 that force which, entering France by way of 
 Holland and England, had awakened an impulse 
 and created a rebellion again^ shallow classicism 
 which rapidly led to the great work done by the 
 men of 1830. Nor is it difficult to know why that 
 revolt was so splendidly successful. Turning from 
 the formahties and con ventionaUties which beset 
 the work of such men as David, Gerard, and their 
 school, painters found their true source of knowk 
 edge in diredl ^udy of nature. It was long before 
 her secrets were fully revealed, but in the work 
 of such men as Millet, Rousseau and Corot we see 
 the beautiful revelation which came to them, and 
 to France— nay, the whole world felt the influence 
 of that wave of the Renaissance which flowed 
 across the plains of Barbizon and the meadows of 
 d'Avray. Not laying its course there, it swept 
 across the broad Atlantic to quicken a mind filled 
 with like ideas, like love of nature, to whom the 
 frail, weak, and altogether insipid effort of those 
 about him was di^a^eful; they, borrowing the 
 wor^ in the empty classicism of Europe, pro? 
 duced nothing upon which such a nature could 
 lean, nor from which learn even the rudiments 
 
 10 
 
of landscape art. Akin, without knowledg^ of 
 the kinship, aKke in love of nature for her own 
 sake, and ^udent of all those my^eries of sun and 
 air, of cloud and sky, of rocks and trees, and of 
 those subtler manife^ations which he called ' ' the 
 moods of Nature," George Inness is truly one of 
 that splendid group who gave to the world the 
 be^ the world has known in landscape art. 
 
 To their tone, depth, form, and convincing 
 logic of beauty he brought color: color such as the 
 older makers knew in their great figure work, 
 the blending of atmospheric delicacy with the 
 utmo^ sumptuousness of the palette, finding the 
 ''fullness of tone" only in the ''fullness of color." 
 In this gift to the sum total of what had been done 
 in France we find the key to the fascination of 
 a fine canvass by Inness. Rebellious, not only 
 again^ such art as there was near by, but again^ 
 the very method of his elders, he early began a 
 laborious, even servile copying of the landscape 
 he saw with his own eyes, nor suffered rules or 
 formula to guide his pencil. "I mu^ paint things 
 as I see them," he said, and in doing this he laid 
 the foundation of that tremendous knowledge 
 which enabled him to say in later years, "My 
 forms are at my finger tips, as the alphabet is on 
 the tongue of a school boy." In this sentence re^s 
 
 II 
 
 « 
 
the secret of that power wtiicli permitted him 
 afterwards to express those finer quaUties which 
 he called ''the moods of Nature" without refer? 
 ence to any superficial data. 
 
 To seiz-e, to underi^and, to express ! a va^ 
 power, truly! Further, it allowed him to unite 
 all the phases of his craftsmanship with the emo? 
 tional and scientific soul of him. To druggie for 
 form is to be so occupied that other more syn? 
 thetic expression is lost; to be firee firom this 
 druggie is to mass all one's forces into the single 
 channel, the expression of idea. 
 
 In all his early work the effort and intent were 
 for objedtive realization. He knew, and each day's 
 work reveals it, that in this way only could he 
 lay the foundations of knowledge so deep that 
 they should be permanent, build them so high 
 that there could, afterwards, be no tumbling 
 blocks. To rid himself of the necessity for object 
 tive thought by commanding it, to make the fins 
 gers the servants of the mind, the mind an inex? 
 hau^ible Morehouse, this was his druggie. No 
 one but the painter himself, perhaps, knows the 
 enormous amount of labor involved in such a 
 conquer. None but a sensitive arti^ can under? 
 ^and the weariness of such a druggie— the true 
 nature a prisoner, unable to give vent to an emo? 
 
 12 
 
tion — yet it is tlirough this very trial tKat great 
 work grows. That thing in art which is done 
 with the easy flippancy of egoi^ic convidlion is 
 seldom of permanent value, and skill alone will 
 never lead one into the well-springs of beauty. 
 
 The knowledge of this truth su^ained Inness, 
 and in his early work we find no trace of the dis? 
 heartened or disgruntled spirit. It is exadt, literal 
 and con^rudled. Exac±, because it is done with a 
 mind single to the one idea of reprodudlion— literal, 
 because he sought such knowledge — con^rudted, 
 because firom eginning Inness had this rare 
 gifi:, the gift which is almoi^ genius. To him 
 composition, the division of space into agrees 
 able masses, the balancing of parts, the value of 
 arabesque in design, with rhythm of line, was 
 an inherent power. His ground, sky, trees are 
 always beautifully drawn, and the utmo^ con? 
 scientiousness in the ^udy of planes and perspec? 
 tive is apparent in his early work. Qualities of 
 charm, of graciousness may be lacking, but of 
 these there is always the promise, as there is of 
 color, which became a passion in later life. To 
 examine his early works, is to have revelation 
 of fidelity and love of truth in miniature^like ren? 
 derings of detail even to the farther limit of mo^ 
 di^ant horizon. There are ^udies of his i^ill ex? 
 
 13 
 
tant in whicK Ills view emtraced, perhaps, forty 
 degrees — a vast extent of country, containing aU 
 the multiplicity of detail of a complex landscape 
 —rocks, hills, trees, forces, i^ream, towering 
 mountains, and all the incident of life such a scene 
 would have, and every detail is scientifically 
 and exadtly rendered as to space, proportion and 
 plane. This does not prove anything arti^ically, 
 since great art comes fi?om right seeing, rather 
 than vividness, of vision, but we can readily un? 
 der^and what treasure of knowledge was being 
 ^ored away by such a worker. He owes no debt 
 to his contemporaries, unless it be that excellent 
 thing of knowing what not to do; their elabora^ 
 tion was by set rule, recipe; his, by a penetrating 
 grasp of principles, of laws, and if he formulated 
 them only to change with greater experience, the 
 course of his ^udy was ever the same and his 
 research unflagging. 
 
 To older schools and arti^s of other times he 
 fi:ankly went, i^udying in them method and ^tyle. 
 \Vhether he saw their work here in America, or 
 not until his fir^ trip abroad, matters Kttle. In the 
 Dutchmen of the great period he recognized mas^ 
 ters, and unhesitatingly appropriated what was 
 good for him to know. As, also, with certain of the 
 Englishmen— Con^able, Gainsborough, Richard 
 
Wilson. There is in the possession of a well* 
 known colledlor a large canvas of this period 
 which is a most curious and intere^ing combina* 
 tion of the fidelity of the Dutchmen, coupled with 
 the breadth of the Enghshmen, which fixUy illus^ 
 trates his power of assimilation. A gentleman 
 once brought to his ^udio a small canvas which 
 he had bought as an Inness, wanting the painter 
 to verify it. W^e examined the canvas with care 
 — a pidture of fiilUeafed trees, with rocks, and a 
 roadway beneath, a tiny figure of a white?shirted 
 man was prone on the ground. It would have been 
 quite possible to count the leaves, or to number 
 the weed forms, so exadlly, to the point of min^ 
 uteness, was each thing painted. Mr. Inness could 
 not remember the pid:ure. ''Leave it, leave it," 
 he said, ''Fll try to think it up." Later, he said to 
 me — ''I remember that pidlure, I was thinking 
 much of Hobbema when I painted it." It is cer? 
 tainly not to be considered a weakness that he 
 should thus go to others for knowledge. Some 
 such course has always been thought wise, and 
 there can be no other meaning in the cu^om of 
 requiring art ^udents to copy the works of the 
 makers. \Ve all know that such close i^udy ins 
 variably discovers, to the intelligent indent, prin^ 
 ciples and beauties of form, color and composition 
 
 15 
 
wKich more casual ^udy will not reveal. In tKe 
 proper ^udy, then, by Inness of tte great makers, 
 in his wiUingness to be influenced by them, there 
 was no servile desire to imitate, but the finer wisn 
 to discover beauty along those paths their ma^ 
 turer training had led them, and it indicates his 
 ^rength that he could do this with no loss to the 
 individuahty of his own work. Nor was he long 
 in dige^ing knowledge so obtained, and we see 
 him speedily producing those remarkable trans 
 scripts of American scenery which fir^ drew 
 attention to his name. W^ide reaches of field and 
 meadow, the business of the harve;^, grazing cat* 
 tie — the rush of trains, flowing breams under 
 broadly ?Ht skies — all typical American scenes. 
 Such pidlures brought him many commissions. 
 
 A very perfedl example of this type of pidture 
 is the beautifiil ''Golden Hour'' in the Hearn 
 Colledtion, MetropoHtan Museum, and in it, also, 
 is evidence of the power he was gaining in the 
 expression of beautifiil light and atmospheric 
 effedls. 
 
 He told me of doing a set of these pidtures for 
 the Erie Railroad people about the time that road 
 was finished, which were to be reproduced and 
 used in advertising. Many years later he found 
 one of these huge canvases in a dim little shop in 
 
 i6 
 
APPROACHING STORM 
 THE CITY ART MUSEUM, ST. LOUIS 
 
Mexico City, which he gleefully bought for a few 
 Mexican dollars. 
 
 These works were only pradlice in the drudge 
 ery of preparation. They were not himself— not 
 expressions of the ego in him which i^rove, and 
 succeeded later in giving to the world visions of 
 landscape beauty unlike any that had preceded 
 them. Only then does the true man appear, and 
 any real analysis which is to be made mu^ find 
 him there and follow him to the end. 
 
 That period, when, after a visit to Florence, 
 and coni^ant intercourse with Page, the arti^, he 
 became deeply intere^ed in reKgious matters and 
 especially the doctrine of Swedenborg, and durs 
 ing which he painted Grange allegorical canvases 
 of the ^^City Set in the Sky," the Valley of the 
 Cross" and others, is merely an excursion aside, 
 a momentary putting away of the real intention, 
 and in the total of his art will not be taken with 
 too great seriousness, though the ideas then 
 formed continued a real influence throughout his 
 life. Of a deeply religious nature, though never 
 devotional — forms and ceremonies were not for 
 him— yet being highly emotional and easily ex^ 
 cited, he could not fail to be an experimentali^ 
 in religion as in art — forever seeking the right by 
 devious trials both in execution and in the appli* 
 
 17 
 
cation of those principles which underlay all his 
 knowledge. Such a nature could not long be cons 
 tent with objedtivity. Perhaps it is not too much 
 to say that the ultimate effort of such a nature 
 mu^ be for synthetic expression, and this was 
 the goal, the final reach of his desire. 
 
 In this brief gKmpse of the earHer portion of 
 Inness's life, I have tried to i^ate the simple, but 
 extremely significant fadt that he built well bes 
 cause he was content to work hard. There was 
 no readysmade skill in this great ma^er, and the 
 habits then founded were his be^ friends— even 
 if at times they were taskmai^ers in later life. 
 And I have emphasized the point, because he be^ 
 lieved so intensely that knowledge mu^ come 
 before power, and if his Hfe is to help others who 
 paint, they mu^ ^art fair, and with this impress 
 sion well in mind. 
 
 We may then go on to the days of freedom for 
 creative art, days when he painted with filled 
 genius— the trained and ready arti^. 
 
 PART Two 
 
 THIS emancipation fii-om the great re^raint of 
 ^udent life, of exadt and objedlive renders 
 ings, is moi^ finely shown in the very precious 
 canvas now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art 
 
 i8 
 
—the ''Delaware Valley." In this pidlure he ad^ 
 vances far into the field of his real power. There 
 is all the old convidtion of form, even to elabora* 
 tion. The extent of country is wide, and far reach? 
 ing, giving fiill opportunity for that aerial per? 
 spedlive of which he later became ma^er. ^Ve 
 find him here very truly a companion of the men 
 ofBarb izon. Study, for a moment, the foreground 
 —there are beautiful textures of rock and weed 
 and earth, touched in with vigor and a sure brush, 
 the color laid on heavily and much manipulated 
 for the very sake of its texture, the gradations of 
 plane being aided by this as well as by the truth 
 of tone. Valley, mount and sky fall into their true 
 places, each is properly enveloped in its just quan? 
 tity of atmosphere and the sky with its drooping 
 fog cloud is rightly seen through its proper amount 
 of airy envelope. This is not achieved by great 
 masses of form and color as in later work, but by 
 the mo^ patient adju^ment of every value, small 
 and great, until the canvas i^ands before us a unit 
 in its warm, umberish tone. For by this time in 
 his art, Inness has possessed himself of the organ 
 pipes of tone. After some years, when he saw 
 this pidture again, he found fault with it, called it 
 ''labored," " o ver belabor ated"— he felt the forms 
 were "petty," (a criticism he was forever mak* 
 
 19 
 
ing againi^ Rousseau and Millet,) and wished for 
 more color. ''If I had it for a Uttle while, I could 
 make it,'' he said undtiously. V/hat would have 
 become of the pidlure! For us it is precious in its 
 own beauty and we may be glad to retain it in its 
 fir^ condition, turning with satisfadlion to later 
 things for those undtious beauties he knew so well 
 how to paint. The ''Delaware Valley "reveals to 
 us that phase of the arti^'s nature which declares 
 him a poet. The execution is scientific in its pre^ 
 cision, but the completed work is a poem of val^ 
 ley and mountain^side, with its drama of swiftly 
 looping, ever changing sky. The subtle thunder 
 reverberates through the hills, and the rush of 
 shadow is upon the world. There is no pidhire 
 that I can recall of Inness's which shows so fully 
 the blend of scienti^ and poet, of ^udent and 
 maimer. 
 
 A fine example of this transitive period is ' 'The 
 Rainbow" in the collection of Mr. F. L. Babbott. 
 Again, we may ^udy his love of ^orm cloud, but 
 more particularly the balance of the composition. 
 The wise placing of the cows, the right spotting 
 of the hay=wagon and the figures — the incident 
 ofthcch urch spire— all these are touches by an 
 arti^ who knew the accents mo^ suited to the 
 beauty of his theme. 
 
 20 
 
Until far into his life there were many ^rugs 
 gles with these contending forces— the pidlure of 
 today being ^ill ^udent^like and objedlive, that 
 of tomorrow a dream, delicate and ideal. 
 
 There were seeming contradidlions even in the 
 physical make up of the man; though slender, and, 
 as the years beset him, with a sHght ^oop in the 
 shoulders, yet he had an immense capacity for 
 work. The only inference, therefore, is that he 
 forever taxed his nervous ^rength to supply force 
 for the hours and hours of work— often at white 
 heat, which was his habit. No one would have 
 called him a handsome man, I think, yet the head 
 was leonine, with its great mass of dark, waving 
 hair, which at times, when under excitement, he 
 would throw off fi-om his forehead; and none 
 could escape the fascination of his intense eyes, 
 though always in later years they shone behind 
 spedlacles. 
 
 His beard was somewhat scant, and slender in 
 shape, and his every movement sugge^ve of exs 
 treme energy. This was the general impression 
 of Mr . Inness's appearance when I fir^ knew him 
 in the middle eighties. 
 
 Never in art was there a brain in which dwelt 
 such tumultuous and contending emotions. Gen? 
 tie as a child in his sympathies, and i^ormy as his 
 
 21 
 
own thundersclouds in tiis dislikes, lie was as lit. 
 tie patient witli himself or his work when faults 
 obtruded as with others. He de^royed ruthlessly 
 in the effort to reach better, greater results. Noth* 
 ing offended him like weakness in a pidture — 
 ''Pea^soup,'' he would say, or ''Dishwater," and 
 it mattered nothing where the blow fell. On 
 one occasion he was taken to a dealer's to see a 
 group of landscapes by a much advertised French 
 painter. I shall not forget the out^thru^ of his 
 lower lip, and the intense tone— ''Dishwater! thin 
 as dishwater! and he was not to be turned from 
 his position. Swift as that judgment was, I am 
 quite sure that the convidtion of the years will 
 bear it out. 
 
 The same exadl phrase fell from his lips when 
 I admired a lovely, tender Spring landscape of his 
 own. Bitterly he said it. The pidlure was full of 
 soft, gray greens and delicate tree forms, and in 
 the sky the pale white moon of the morning, when 
 it is far on the wane. Having deUvered himself of 
 this criticism of himself, Inness thru^ his thumb 
 into a mass of crude chrome yellow and smeared 
 it on the moon. "Stay there now," he said to it, 
 ' ' until I make you look white ! " Painters will un* 
 der^and what that problem was— the building 
 up, intensifying, strengthening of all the values 
 
 22 
 
and colors; but this Kc did witK splendid courage, 
 and the pidlure came out ju^ as lovely, ju^ as 
 Spring-like and refined, but stronger — and the 
 pale moon hid itself in the mellow atmosphere of 
 a Spring sky. 
 
 This somewhat erratic and intense method 
 may have lo^ to the world some good pidlures, 
 (it is a common saying among painters that Inness 
 has painted out more good pictures than anyone 
 else ever painted) but it was his way, and doubt? 
 less one of the very rungs by which he cKmbed 
 the ladder of his present fame. 
 
 The quality of courage about his work was a 
 very dominant one with Inness. He was abso? 
 lutely fearless in his treatment of his canvases, 
 however near finish they might be, or however 
 delicate the degree of finish. That timidity which 
 characterizes some painters, making them ifearfiil 
 le^ some already completed details be loi^, was 
 wholly absent in Inness. The work mu^ be fin? 
 ished as a whole, never in part. ''It mu^ be as 
 complete as a portrait by Rembrandt," he would 
 say, and if at the last moment he discovered a 
 weakness, a ''hitch," or a falsely adjui^ed prin? 
 ciple, the treatment was never by a process of 
 "patching up," but an heroic reca^ing of the 
 whole — to emerge, after great labor, perhaps. 
 
 ^3 
 
nobler and more perfedt in his eyes, ''pushed a 
 little farther" as he would say. Sometimes, though 
 rarely, the particular work was lo^, and yet, who 
 may say how great the gain to the man's power 
 in having made the effort. 
 
 On one occasion a frame came in from the 
 maker, intended for a canvas just finished. A mis* 
 take had been made in the size; Mr. Inness sent 
 out for a canvas, and set to work with energies 
 at fever heat to paint ''at a sitting" a pidlure for 
 the new frame. Late that afternoon he came for 
 me to see the result. He was very excited, and 
 well might he be. The bare canvas of the morning 
 was the mo^ briUiant, dazzling piece of open day? 
 Hght possible to conceive. Two great trees rose 
 from the very near left foreground, their roots 
 reaching into a soft, marshy bit of ground, with 
 large weeds beautifully drawn and placed, in 
 which a soUtary crane ^ood silently; in the backs 
 ground a great earth and rock cliff rose almo^ to 
 the top of the canvas; againi^ the bit of blue sky 
 ^ood a boy with a gun, his white shirt catching 
 the sunhght— that was all— simple and untortured 
 in composition, but so radiant in color that it was, 
 indeed, veritable dayHght. There had not been 
 time for anything but diredl painting, no glazes, 
 no building up of textures by repeated paintings. 
 
 24 
 
THE RAINBOW 
 COLLECTION OF FRANK L. BABBOTT 
 
( 
 
The textures were had by a feat of pure brush 
 handhng, and the extreme^ of the modern pleimir 
 men would have had no quarrel with him I think, 
 though his broken tones were not evident, neither 
 were they detached. It was a sane and radiant 
 piece of painting by a ma^er, done in a moment, 
 at white heat. What became of the pidture? Alas! 
 for the answer. 
 
 One of those problems which obsessed his 
 mind in his search for principles — scientific laws 
 by which he might con^rudl and complete his 
 work, attacked him — the pidlure fell a vidtim to 
 the problem. The trees were too near the firont 
 of the canvas — they were cut off— at once the cKff 
 was out of proportion; a drove of red and white 
 cows drinking was added, the color intended to 
 give weight to the lower sedtion of the canvas ; 
 then the cHff was changed into a mass of trees. 
 Nothing was right, and change after change fols 
 lowed. The canvas became a worried and heavy 
 work — one of the rare cases when success did not 
 reward effort. It was a ''try out" of the principle 
 he was searching for. Many later canvases will 
 show the calm and beauty he was trying for at 
 that particular time. 
 
 This was the law he laid down afterward, and 
 followed relentlessly: — From the horizon (not the 
 
 25 
 
the sky line) to the neare^ point— the bottom of 
 the canvas— there shall be three great planes ; the 
 fir^ two shall be foreground, the third, or la^ 
 shall contain all the di^ance. The subjedl matter 
 mu^ not be within the fir^ plane, but behind it, 
 and whatever reaches above the horizon line, by 
 its size and proportion becomes subjedl matter — 
 therefore trees that find their plane within the 
 fir^ great sedlion are too near, and perforce mu^ 
 be cut off at the base to force them away. So too, 
 a figure, wherever placed, mu^ not reach above 
 the horizon, else it becomes subjedt matter and 
 therefore a figure pidture. It is an inter e^ing pos^ 
 tulate, and if followed logically gives beautifully 
 balanced results. 
 
 This courage of Inness, to which we are refer? 
 ring, was not merely a willingness to de^roy, it 
 had other and various sides. \Vith a landscape of 
 exceedingly rich and powerful color, of maje^ic 
 moods and infinite variety, there was no one 
 phase which held his whole interest. He wished 
 to know the secrets of all. No man before him, for 
 in^ance, had the problem of the luxurious green 
 of midssummer, in a verdure as opulent, almo^, 
 as the tropics. Inness gave us a type of pidture 
 quite unknown before. Courageously he ^rove 
 to render this powerfijl color, which arti^s know 
 
 26 
 
 I 
 
THE COAST OF CORNWALL 
 COLLECTION OF JOHN D. CRIMMINS 
 
to he almost impossible when it, in itself, is the 
 theme ; he yielded no particle of ^rength to the 
 soothing influence of browns, grays and russets, 
 but frankly painted the green of American field 
 and fore^ with an easy, though powerful hand. 
 
 An in^ance of his power, and control over the 
 difficulties involved in greens, is seen in the little 
 pidture which was the center of intere^ in the 
 Thomas B. Clark sale — the ''Gray, lowery Day." 
 The pidlure is vivid and firesh, the greens intense, 
 yet never crude ; the pigment laid on with a cer? 
 tainty as to values, color and texture that comes 
 only from the touch of a ma^er, and there is prob? 
 ably not two hour's work on the canvas. A frank 
 ^udy out of doors, when the grass was wet firom 
 a morning rain. 
 
 Not always was he so successfiil, nor are the 
 very large green canvases so attractive or so com* 
 plete. This may come fi?om the difficulty which 
 besets a painter who essays quality upon large sur* 
 faces — and fijrther, there is no color which is so 
 difficult to achieve in glazes and scumbles. It is 
 intere^ing, therefore to note that the pidlures of 
 Inness's which are essentially green are nearly 
 always pieces of diredt painting. The wonderful 
 example which is now owned in Chicago — the 
 young girl with a white calf— is quite as extraor^ 
 
 ^7 
 
dinary as it is unusual in the variety and beauty 
 of the greens, and these are made more intense by 
 the contra^ afforded in the color and placing of 
 the somewhat recalcitrant white calf 
 
 There is another example which was done un* 
 der the influence of great excitement, and which 
 illu^rates not only his ahiKty to paint diredlly , but 
 is significant of the energy and enthusiasm with 
 which he was at times moved. ^Vhile walking in 
 the fields one day in June, he was overtaken by a 
 sweeping thunder^orm, and of course was much 
 birred. He ha^ened to the house, and as he told 
 me himself— ''I could find nothing — no canvas big 
 enough to paint it on; in my hall there was a big 
 pidture ofMountW^ashington I had painted years 
 ago, so I got a ^epdadder and in two hours this 
 pidture was completed — Fll show it to you, it's 
 coming in now." This was said to me the morns 
 ing the pidlure was being brought in jS?om Mont^ 
 clair to his New York ^udio. Very soon the men 
 brought in a great ten foot canvas, ^ill wet with 
 the freshness of the new paint. The arti^ was 
 much excited to see it and to show it, and his 
 eagerness at such times was moi^ delightful. The 
 pidture was indeed a ^orm — with rush of wind, 
 the ^oop of trees, and the shadowed presence of 
 a convulsion of nature. W^e were amazed at such 
 
 28 
 
a feat— the magical brush handKng, knowledge, 
 and vividness of impression. Quite entirely we 
 lo^ thought of the submerged Mount Washing? 
 ton, until Inness, with a chuckle, pointed out its 
 ^ill evident outKne under the new paint. I do not 
 know what that pidlure was, nor how fine, but 
 the new work was ma^erly and the quaKties of 
 green surprising in their value. Later on the pic? 
 ture was retouched (tamed a little, I should say) 
 and is now treasured in the St. Louis Museum. 
 
 This ^ory is valuable because it shows some? 
 thing of the impulsiveness of his charadler, his 
 impetuosity, and the energy which is so evident 
 in all his work. This impulsiveness le.d him, or 
 misled him into Grange situations at times. It 
 would never have been safe, for ini^ance, to let 
 him admini^er medicines to himself, no matter 
 what the trouble. A pill to be taken — one every 
 two hours — is a very usual prescription. Inness 
 would have taken the fir^ one, and swallowed 
 the re^ at the second taking. At lunch one day, 
 I had ju^ been taking a tonic which was to be 
 taken ''a small wine glass before meals" — Inness 
 asked what it was, and upon my saying it was 
 for a general tired, ''run down" condition, said: 
 ''If a little does good, more should do better," and 
 swallowed the whole bottle fiill. 
 
 29 
 
This same impulsiveness was the cause, also, 
 of much of the ^rain in his work. The ''hitches" 
 which he fought so valiantly often were the result 
 of ha^e, and he frequently lamented the time lo^ 
 in corredling the ''mi^akes." He believed, mo^ 
 ardently, in a true, scientific appHcation of his 
 principles, and at one time thought that if he 
 might find a man who could, firom the sketches, 
 draw in his new canvases, that he could proceed 
 to a perfedt, scientific finish. He found such a man 
 in the person of Robert Eichelberger, the young 
 painter who later painted two or three of the very 
 great marines in our art, and who, alas ! died too 
 soon, for his was true genius expressing itself with 
 fine abihty. This plan of Inness's did not la^ long, 
 and, as every one expedted, was not satisfadlory 
 — the very life of Inness's work being in the sug* 
 ge^ion which his own technical methods gave it. 
 The connedlion, however, had a good result in 
 giving us the only large etching of Mr. Inness's 
 works. Mr. Eichelberger was an arti^ic and ex* 
 pert etcher, and has left this very monumental 
 example of his skill. 
 
 PART THREE 
 
 MENTION of Inness's technical methods sug* 
 ge^s the wisdom of recording them here, 
 for those who find intere^ in such things, and for 
 
 30 
 
STORM ON THE DELAWARE 
 THE CITY ART MUSEUM, ST. LOUIS 
 
adlual record, since, in the fir^ place, I had full 
 opportunity to witness his processes, and he was 
 ever willing to talk about and explain them; and 
 also they should be recorded because so much 
 veritable trash is being signed w-ith his name and 
 sold falsely, that even an elementary knowledge 
 of his methods should protedt from much that 
 masquerades as his — and, in passing, I may say it 
 is an exceedingly difficult thing to imitate that 
 erratic touch which could sugge^ so much. 
 
 Speaking broadly, Mr. Inness had two di^indl 
 methods of working, and they concerned the sur^ 
 face upon which he was at work, whether it was 
 a new canvas or an old one, and this habit of 
 working on old canvases co^ the world many 
 good pidlures, because, often, when there was no 
 canvas ready for him, and the idea he desired to 
 express was hot within him, he painted on any? 
 thing that was convenient, and, as in the Mount 
 Washington pidlure, the older work was sacri* 
 ficed to the new. One would think it might have 
 been wise to keep his closets filled with canvases 
 of the various sizes he was in the habit of using, 
 for with him as with other painters there was a 
 habit about such things. 
 
 In working upon a new canvas the subjed; was 
 drawn in with a few bold i^rokes, the ^rudlure, 
 
 31 
 
and principle underlying tlie theme being 
 grasped, this was then Gained in with due regard 
 for breadth and light and shade, but tke tones 
 were not extremely varied nor was the full power 
 of contra^ sought. The pigment was always 
 transparent and thinned with a vehicle — turpen^ 
 tine and Siccatif de Haarlem, or Siccatif de Cou^ 
 trey if he was in haste for the drying. As this 
 ^ain set or grew tacky, it was rubbed and scrubs 
 bed into the canvas, lights were scratched out 
 with thumb nail or brush handle, or wiped out 
 with a rag — always modeUing, drawing, deveh 
 oping in the most surprising manner ; never for 
 a moment at a loss for a form whether it were 
 cloud, or tree, or weed, or figure of man or animal 
 — they seemed to shape themselves at his touch, 
 and the brush was spread with extreme force, as 
 it scrubbed until in its scratching there developed 
 wonderful growths of grass, or weeds or trees. 
 As this color tightened in the drying, the forms 
 were sharpened, limbs drawn with delicate but 
 firm touch, with clear, thin color, terminations 
 being accompHshed with extreme care, for he 
 knew as few have known the secret of charadter 
 which re^s in the terminations of various tree 
 growths, and when this was not done well, either 
 in his own or another's work, he called it "'Stupid." 
 
 32 
 
The pidlurc now being fully set, and the whole 
 theme fairly pulsating with the vibrant, undtious 
 flow of it all, for as yet there was no touch of 
 opaque color, he would sharpen a few lights by 
 scratching— perhaps with a knife, more often 
 with the finger nail— add a note here and there 
 of Wronger color and ^op for the time. 
 
 It will be seen that by this process a work had 
 to be done at one continuous sitting — frankly at 
 one time, and the energy he put into this method 
 of Parting a pidlure was amazing. Sometimes 
 these canvases were so complete, and the sugges? 
 tion so accurate both in point of color and value, 
 that they were allowed to remain so. The mo^ 
 perfed: example I know is the canvas now in the 
 colledlion of Mr . Louis Ettlinger, called ' ' Etretat, " 
 I have always had an idea that the French village 
 had little to do with the pidlure, as it was done 
 in his ^udio and apparently with no sketch for 
 guidance, but titles matter Httle and the pidlure is 
 a superb and perfedt example of the craft of the 
 ma^er. 
 
 A group of painters were discussing methods 
 of working in a ^udio adjacent to that of Mr. 
 Inness. Presently he came in and took up the 
 argument, forcibly, as was his habit. ''You use 
 too many colors," he said, ''All that you need to 
 
 33 
 
begin a pidture witK is yellow ochre, wKite and 
 black. Give me a canvas and Fll skow you." A 
 new canvas about 20x30 inches in size was put 
 upon the easel, and for something Kke an hour he 
 painted, producing with broad rubs and masses, 
 though very delicate in tint, a pulsating, tremulous 
 bit of atmosphere. There was a pond with a mill, 
 and tree on the far shore all rightly placed and 
 felt, and executed with such ease and with such 
 colorful effedt, that all argument was silenced, 
 each man feeKng that he had received a lesson in 
 painting of greater importance. ''Now, let me 
 have a touch of blue and Fll finish it," said the old 
 painter. \Vith this aKttle space of sky was opened 
 to the far ether — the water of the pond catching 
 the refledlion, and being better surfaced, the worK 
 was complete. The method was precisely that 
 which has been described except that he used 
 partially opaque colors. I have recently seen this 
 pidlure and it has retained its original purity and 
 ^rength quite perfedtly. 
 
 There are at lea^ two other examples which 
 were allowed to remain in this transparent ^ate. 
 Mr. Inness had seen some pidlures at a dealer's by 
 Rousseau, evidently sketches, but held at great 
 prices. He said, ''I can do two of those in a day" — 
 and he did. Working with an ease and certainty, 
 
 34 
 
as well as with fierce energy, he painted two 
 pidtures of singular beauty — one I remember 
 particularly — a deep, red? brown autumn sub* 
 jedl, which was superb in color. The two pic? 
 tures were sold next day to one man, and Inness 
 laughed and said, ''Fm going to hire out to paint 
 by the day." 
 
 When he took up a pidlure Parted in this trans? 
 parent way to carry it on, he worked with great 
 skill, and to me it was intensely inter e^ing. He 
 would fir^ e^ablish one or two crisp important 
 notes of white, or pure color — and then with color 
 not fially opaque he would ^ate the Kghts in all the 
 greater masses, gradually increasing the opacity 
 until the composition became fiilly e^abKshed in 
 all its masses— the lights being opaque and shad? 
 ows transparent. The sky would then be painted 
 with more elaboration, and the pidture allowed 
 to dry. Wlien taken up again, some great wash 
 or rub of color would be spread all over it, and 
 certain parts wiped out, the balance being manip? 
 ulated with brushes which were little better than 
 mops— but the ma^er?hand controlled, and the 
 result was a wealth of sugge^ed detail. Some? 
 times this wash of transparent color would be 
 allowed to dry, but more often the painter became 
 impatient and ''went at it" in the manner de? 
 
 35 
 
scribed. It was, also, his theory that the final work 
 should be done with skilful placings of grey — the 
 middle tone of black and white. This he said gave 
 that dehcate top light which is so delightful in out? 
 door things. He often advised it for figure work, 
 and sometimes would shut himself up with the 
 model to make these experiments. I was never 
 fortunate enough to see the results; that is, of fig? 
 ures done in the nude. There are many examples 
 of his abihty to do the draped figure very well, 
 and his skill in ''touching in" figures in his land? 
 scape was Httle short of marvelous — so balanced 
 are they, and so truthfully enveloped in the atmos? 
 phere of the landscape. 
 
 He, perhaps, found the nude figure, with the 
 controUing necessity for form, a tax upon patience. 
 In landscape slight inaccuracies of form or place* 
 ment are not of much importance, and the ac? 
 cidental is a very delightfiil thing to seize and 
 appropriate, so long as sugge^ion and fitness are 
 adhered to, but there can be no tampering with 
 drawing in figure work — the pose once ei^ab? 
 hshed, can not readily be altered. Begun as a fig? 
 ure, it remains so to the end, whether the result 
 be fine or not. To a landscape man the translation 
 of a broad, green meadow into a pond, the alter? 
 ing of a row of houses into trees, is but the matter 
 
 36 
 
of a few moments and some well spread pigment. 
 Inness always seemed of too impatient a nature 
 to he a figure painter, and happily so for us. 
 
 There is an amusing ^ory of this ahiKty to 
 translate a landscape into something quite differ? 
 ent. A gentleman bought one of his pidlures at an 
 exhib ition of the National Academy of Design. 
 It was a deHcate Spring landscape with cows 
 grazing in the broad meadows. The pidlure was 
 brought to Mr. Inness with the reque^ to sharpen 
 the drawing in the cows — they were Uttle more 
 than notes of color— I saw the pidture in his ^udio 
 quite early in the morning and admired it greatly. 
 About three o clock that afternoon he knocked 
 loudly at my ^udio door, and I opened it to find 
 him much excited, his eyes aflame and hair wild, 
 but a happy, exulting look upon his face — ''IVe 
 got it!" he said— ''fine^ thing IVe ever done! I 
 followed principle from beginning to end, now 
 all IVe got to do is to go ahead and paint every? 
 thing the same way!" 
 
 I went into his ^udio, and saw a ^ormy sun? 
 set, over a much torn, surf broken ocean. Two 
 black rocks were in the foreground, over which 
 the sea pounded with the fury of hate, and a sky 
 of purple, gold?lined clouds was fairly aflame. I 
 caught my breath with a gasp— the thing was so 
 
 37 
 
powerful. TKcn Inness said slyly, and with a twin? 
 kle in kis eyes, ''I guess I touched up his cows 
 for him!" ''What do you mean," I asked. ''Why 
 that's the pidlure you saw here this morning— it's 
 better now isn't it?" Of course there was a scene 
 when the owner came, but he was wise enough 
 to take the new pidlure, although Inness told him 
 he need not. 
 
 His behef that a pidlure always belonged to the 
 arti^ who painted it, and that he should be privi^ 
 leged to do with it what he pleased in the intere^ 
 of better art, would hardly be agreed with by 
 owners in general, and such an erratic course as 
 the above ^ory illu^rates might not always be 
 so successful. 
 
 Swayed by his feelings, Mr. Inness was often 
 misunder^ood — indeed misrepresented. He was 
 called selfish and conceited. Lesser men often said 
 of him that his only intere^s were in his own pic* 
 tures at the exhibitions, and that he could talk of 
 nothing else. Enough has been said here to show 
 that the personal intere^ was only intense so far 
 as it might improve the work in hand— an intere^ 
 that grew solely out of his desire to improve a 
 work. Nay, many times when his conversation 
 seemed to be fiill of praise for a work upon his 
 easel, the Hstener might have remained to see the 
 
 38 
 
SILVERY MORNING 
 COLLECTION OF EDWARD B. BUTLER 
 
very admirable things repainted and the whole 
 work undergo change in response to some impulse 
 of his vigorous imagination and desire for im? 
 provement. That he was not selfish is splendidly- 
 shown in the incident which I had occasion to 
 write about ju^ afi:er his death, and which I shall 
 repeat here, because of its value in showing that 
 side of his char adter, and because it is a very great 
 happiness to tell the ^ory again. It will be remem? 
 bered that upon the fir^ visit of Benj. Con^ant, 
 the great French painter, he praised extremely 
 the works of George Inness. There was the nat? 
 ural effedl — the dealers all wished to secure fine 
 examples of Inness's work, and he had many vis^ 
 itors and made numerous sales. I had the good 
 fortune to paint a little pidlure which pleased him 
 and which he bought from me in a very charac? 
 teri^ic, impetuous way. Elsewhere I have told 
 the ^ory . Upon a morning soon after, there came 
 a knock at my ^udio door and I found Mr. Inness 
 with three other gentlemen whom he introduced, 
 saying, ''These men came to buy my pidlures — 
 I wouldn't have it, said they mu^ buy yours, 
 show them what you have ! " My embarrassment 
 was extreme and Inness's running fire of com? 
 ment, criticism and dogmatic interference when 
 prices were mentioned, were so significant of an 
 
 39 
 
eager, liigK^^rung charadter, that nothing more 
 could be needed to show his breadth and genera 
 osity . The visit ended with the sale of eleven pic? 
 tures to those buyers of his whom he was bodily 
 turning over to me, and the prices were set by 
 Inness himself. Surely such an ad; has no spark of 
 selfishness in it! 
 
 At times he was very plain-spoken, — A young 
 woman watching him work ventured to sugge^ 
 that a certain note of red might be ''echoed'' in 
 another part of the pidlure. The sugge^ion met 
 the painter's approval, and was done. Highly 
 pleased with herself, the lady presently sugge^ed 
 another ''echo'' which was as absurd as the fir^ 
 chanced to be right,— "Echo be damned," said 
 Inness — "you don't know what you are talking 
 about!" and thereafi:er was let alone. 
 
 There was a vein of dry humor, also, in his 
 "make up" — Being asked by a young woman, 
 "Mr. Inness, what kind of a brush should I use 
 to paint a sunset?" Inness repHed, "A blacking 
 brush, if you can get what you want with it!" 
 At another time a painter who had very exhau^? 
 ively elaborated a pidture which he thought very 
 successful, and also, very fine in color, asked 
 Inness to come and see it. The old painter looked 
 at it for a few minutes and then said,— "That's all 
 
 40 
 
THE MILL POND 
 THE CHICAGO ART INSTITUTE 
 
■ 
 
right as far as it goes, now all youVc got to do is 
 to go ahead and paint it ! " 
 
 Another i^ory which I have often told is not 
 without point, though the shaft was directed at 
 me. I had painted a moonlight pid:ure,with a Kne 
 of rail jfence running down to the foreground. 
 Inness objedled Wrongly to the fence. ''Why 
 can't I have the fence there if I want it?" said I. 
 -You can, was the answer, you want to be 
 a damned idiot!" I need not say the fence was 
 painted out. 
 
 It mu^ not be inferred from these Tories that 
 the painter was rough, or without sympathy— 
 the contrary was the case, and his sympathies 
 were easily aroused. But ever the dominant am* 
 bition for his art urged him on, his mind search? 
 ing out problems, and grappling with them in a 
 manner wholly original, often with a reKgious sig? 
 nificance in the conclusions, but always with a 
 shrewd bearing upon art. Many of these ab^ruse 
 themes he would talk of in a fragmentary way, 
 and generally prote^ that they were all v^itten 
 down and would be found among his papers. 
 Alas ! I fear his methods were not sy^ematic in 
 this, and an editor working with whatever care 
 or love would have intense difficulty in bringing 
 order out of the chaos which attended his writing 
 
 41 
 
methods, since he would write part of a thought 
 in this package of papers and the re^ in another, 
 knowing, doubtless, that he would be able to 
 recognize it, and would at some future time bring 
 them together, but for us they are probably lo^. 
 
 His love of the ''middle tone," and search for 
 the law controlling it, was at all times intere^ing, 
 and the day that he got hold of a law or principle 
 which seemed to diredt it, that moment he adopted 
 and applied it. We who were near him knew this 
 as the ''blue phase" of his art. That is, he decided 
 that a certain tone of blue was the middle register 
 of the color scale, and at once every pidlure was 
 given a bath of blue. He arrived at this middle 
 tone law in this way : If a set of eight upright lines 
 be drawn to represent an odlave, sound will pro? 
 ceed from top to bottom in a spiral or vortexical 
 movement connecting them, the initial or potent 
 tial energy generating the sound will be greater 
 through the center of this spiral— hence the mid? 
 die tone will ever be fine^, stronger, pure^. He 
 pursued this thought, proving (to his own satis? 
 fadtion at lea^) that in this movement one^tenth 
 of the initial sound in each octave was lo^— re? 
 turned to the infinite— "the tithe of the ancients," 
 he said. 
 
 Another principle which will be much disputed 
 
 42 
 
and apparently often refuted, but one wliick led 
 Inness into many of his mo^ perfedt successes, 
 was his adherence to the idea that the sky should 
 hold the middle tone of the pidlure — if too high, 
 the tendency in the landscape portion was to lose 
 color in blackness — if too low, to lose clarity, or 
 luminosity in the color. In my own experience 
 I have seen the wisdom of this didtum, and the 
 treasure of it is in that word ''luminosity" — since 
 light will never be successfully found in white. 
 The pigment itself carrying little impression of 
 light to the eye, and as there is no intention or 
 effort to produce hght, the impression is the thing, 
 and luminosity the much desired goal. Inness 
 reached this by working within a gamut which 
 enabled him to surround every particle of white 
 with a luminous body, and the result is before 
 you in the glow of his sunsets — the heat of his 
 mid^day themes and the vivid light of his skies. 
 
 Mr. Inness loved the sunset hour and was mas? 
 ter always of its subtleties. ''W^hen your color is 
 in the dii^ance," he would say, ' 'relieve your fore^ 
 ground in gray." He painted it often with wide 
 variation and changeful mood. 
 
 bometimes the forces of tragedy were at work, 
 with all the conflidt of Hght and darkness, the roll 
 of storm-cloud, and bur^ of fierce yellow blaze ; 
 
 43 
 
again, the glow fell away beyond the horizon, 
 with swimming cloudlets tinged with the cop^ 
 pery red that is so lovely in nature, while high up 
 in the clear ether hung the crescent moon. Though 
 description fail, and photographs may only give 
 us but a sugge^ion, there are always certain things 
 which we may dwell upon in his pidlures. 
 
 How glowing, full, and exuberant is the early 
 canvas now in Mr. Borden s colledtion ! The beau? 
 tiful compositional form being so ample and yet 
 so wisely balanced for the very expression of 
 glowing sunset Hght — and in the other, owned by 
 the same gentleman, how adequately we may 
 ^udy the development not only of the dramatic 
 in^indt of the man, but the technical richness of 
 his brush and palette— the glory of the we^ern sky 
 — the precision of touch and color which quickens 
 the httle clouds into burning light. Your reaHsm 
 falls ^ale and flat in the presence of a fire^wor? 
 shipper like this whose brush seems dipped in the 
 sun. How surely, too, we may say that craftsman? 
 ship should be the vehicle of the soul's expression, 
 else it is merely finger work, the handicraft of the 
 artisan. 
 
 Fitful and many as were his moods, there was 
 never a time when he let go of the great principle 
 which guided him, that an arti^'s business is to 
 
 44 
 
paint wKat Ke feels, rather tKan wKat he sees, 
 mindful, however, that he mu^ ever lay up 
 knowledge by ^udy, since by its use, only, can 
 he express the quaKties of Unity which are the 
 qualities of Beauty. 
 
 PART FOUR 
 
 IN the art of Corot and Rousseau there are lim? 
 itations both of color and theme, more perhaps 
 m work of Corot than Rousseau, and even in 
 the Dutchmen whose influence so surely begot 
 the men of 1830, there was a contentment in the 
 effort to ma^er a single phase of nature. The men? 
 tion of Ruysdael brings us visions of leaping falls 
 and broken water, the sombre tones of tree and 
 rock lightened by the foam of rapids. In Hobbema 
 the quiet rural theme under calm skies, and with 
 httle variant of tonaHty is charadleri^ic, nor can 
 we escape the silvery beauty of the springtime 
 and early morning when Corot comes to mind; 
 but with Inness his versatile genius allowed him to 
 grasp the range of season and of Nature's moods— 
 the ^orm and the calm— the tender grey and green 
 of Spring with quite as deKcate and subtle feel? 
 ing as Corot — witness the ''\Vood Gatherers" in 
 the Hearn colled;ion,or the lovely ' 'Silvery Morn? 
 ing" bought by Mr. Cranberry at the Halted sale 
 
 45 
 
—a pidlure which ^ood for long upon the painter's 
 easel and which he often spoke of as one of his 
 fine^ works. Ma^er, also, of the vividness of day^ 
 hght or the subtle tenderness of moonlight, the 
 range of his knowledge and of his palette seemed 
 without limit. His easy adaptabiHty to place and 
 condition is but another way to speak of his ver? 
 satility. The great ^udy of ''The Coast of Corn* 
 wall," now owned by Mr. John D. Crimmins, is 
 indicative — so, also, the Florida Indies and the 
 ''Georgia Pines." 
 
 In the fir^ of these remarkable canvases, bo th 
 of which are of the nature of diredt pieces of 
 painting, dependent upon no super^imposed lay? 
 ers of color, glazes or other technical processes, 
 Mr. Inness ^ates his impression with a power that 
 is unfaltering. The canvas shows us how intense 
 was his emotional under landing, and we can im? 
 agine the old painter looking out upon this rock? 
 bound coa^, where for so many, many years the 
 hidden rocks and the tremendous, treacherous 
 seas have made league to take toll of those "who 
 go down to the sea in ships," watching the tiny 
 fishing crafi: return fi:om the outer ocean to the 
 harbor known of the fishers ; and out of these im? 
 pressions, in a moment of exaltation, a moment, 
 if you will, of close sympathy with the ^rife of 
 
 46 
 
elements, he calls up a vision for us of ^orm, sea, 
 the rocky coa^ and Kardy fishers, so real, so true 
 that his emotions become ours. He passes on to 
 us his impression of a great theme, plus the man 
 himself, and lo! his vision becomes our vision. 
 Surely this is Art, great Art! 
 
 The ''Georgia Pines," perhaps equally fine as 
 a technical achievement, is quite at the other ex^ 
 treme of the emotional scale. It is Hght, airy, gra? 
 cious. Lyric w^ould be the proper word. And as 
 truly was it done under the inspiration of an ex? 
 treme, if more delicate, emotion. The beautifiil 
 drawing of the trees, and their gracefiil groupings, 
 the ethereal beauty of the sky, and the perfedl 
 regi^ration of tones in the landscape give one an 
 impression of lyric beauty that is very moving. 
 
 In this connection I wish, also, to recall a pic? 
 ture painted, I think, in Virginia, which Mr. Benj. 
 Con^ant considered remarkable. It was caUed 
 ''A March Day," and its name was well merited 
 in the cold binder of the weather, spendidly felt 
 and expressed in the pidlure. 
 
 These works, as I have said, show his adapta? 
 bility to place, but it is in the Jersey fields and 
 woods we shall think of him ofi:ene^, and here he 
 made his home and knew his environment. 
 
 At Niagara Inness seems more nearly to have 
 
 47 
 
missed his genius. Intensely moved as he was, it 
 IS the more curious that his pidlures of the great 
 waterfall are not in themselves the splendid per? 
 formances one would expedt from such an exus 
 berant mind; yet his sketches made on the spot 
 are quite birring and full of power. 
 
 If it be said of Inness that he was not a great 
 pamter m the sense of being a fine technician, that 
 he could not handle the pigment with the charm 
 which makes the performance of some men a de^ 
 Kght, and leaves the ^udent quite a^tremble at the 
 virihty, virtuosity — what you wiU — of the brush 
 work, it may be admitted with no hurt to the 
 maker's repute, though even that que^ion might 
 be debatable on the ground that he used his paint 
 in a way hitherto unknown, and that his pro? 
 cesses tended rather to disguise than to expose the 
 method ; further, attention may be called to cer? 
 tciin of the earlier things where the youthful mind, 
 the eager muscles, and the sure grasp caused him 
 to paint with a very great love of the use of ma^ 
 terials, and they are very perfedl works for ^u? 
 dents to ^udy, since they are painted without 
 trick or formula, and exhibit a ma^ery of mate? 
 rial that few have equalled. Nowhere have I at? 
 tempted to say that Inness was a man whose 
 methods should be ^udied by the art ^udent. On 
 
 48 
 
THE WOOD GATHERERS 
 COLLECTION OF GEORGE A. HEARN 
 
the contrary he should let it alone. But his art — 
 the principles underlying his composition, the 
 science ofhis balances and rhythm, his knowledge 
 and ta^e in truth of sky, of tree form, of ground 
 con^rudtion-these are matters that should arouse 
 the livelier intere^, and which will reward the 
 utmo^ ^udy. 
 
 In examining a very beautiful sunset pidlure 
 one day, the theme of which was a river running 
 ^raight away into the pidture, with the setting 
 sun at the far perspective and richly reflected in 
 die water, one of the oh servers said, ''Mr. Inness, 
 where did you get that subjedl?" ''Oh!" said he, 
 "I saw the sun setting at the end of my lane, one 
 day in Montclair, and that was all I needed." 
 Which ^ory illu^rates the imaginative control 
 he ever had upon whatever impressed him. The 
 fadl was oflittle moment to him — the law, or the 
 spirit underlying the fad:, that was what inter? 
 e^ed and concerned him. 
 
 Only a ma^er may dare to see things in this 
 way, and it would be a dangerous course for a 
 beginner to attempt translating lanes into rivers. 
 
 With the exception of the fine group of pic? 
 tures recently given by Mr. Butler to the Chicago 
 Art In^itute there is not in any one of our Mu? 
 seums or pubKc galleries an adequate showing of 
 
 49 
 
Mr. Inness's work, and this lack is to he explained 
 only by the general failure to fuUy e^imate him at 
 his real worth. In this very regard there is a rapid 
 change taking place, and we hope soon to see, sup^ 
 plementing those works already in the Hearn coh 
 ledlion at the MetropoHtan Museum, and in the 
 Museum's own, a greater, more perfedlly seledled 
 group of the maker's canvasses — arranged chro^ 
 nologically — showing that initial ^lyle which I 
 have tried to indicate here, and ranging through 
 all those phases which moi^ perfedlly express his 
 able^ work, up to the synthetic, or latei^ phase 
 of his labor. Such a room would become a Na^ 
 tional pride and should not long be omitted here, 
 where more nearly than elsewhere we may hope 
 one day to have an American ''Louvre." 
 
 His had been a life of hard work, of intense 
 apphcation, and as in many other cases, with the 
 passing years he became more and more syns 
 thetic; from the careful analytical reasoner, he 
 became the synthecii^, and more and more he 
 sought expression in great waves of color — occa? 
 sional forceful expressions would break from him 
 when color and form were perfedlly balanced, 
 but with the approach of the end he seemed to lose 
 himself in the musical influence which color gives 
 to some minds, and, while beautiful, they bear 
 
 50 
 
SUNSET 
 
 COLLECTION OF M. C. D. BORDEN 
 
only a relative connedlionwitk that wliich is be^ 
 in his worK. 
 
 In the contemplation of this synthetic phase 
 ofhis work, the pidlure which comes oftenei^ to 
 my mind is one now somewhat crudely called 
 ''Threatening" and which I have recently had 
 the opportunity to examine very carefully. At 
 the outset the pidlure was intended to be a ^orm, 
 with ^ress of wind sweeping over a wooded val^ 
 ley. In the foreground— a hill on which grew an 
 apple orchard— there was a sheep-fold with one 
 or two ^ray sheep. Then for the sake of a ^rong 
 note a black ^aUion was added (magnificent crea^ 
 ture : I have always lamented the passing of that 
 ^allion with his noble, defiant air) ; soon this was 
 painted out, as if the painter could not endure the 
 very ^rength of the animal. W^hen later on he 
 took up the canvas, his own ^rength was faiKng 
 and his mind seeking expression in color^waves ; 
 the pidlure was one of the last he worked upon, 
 and it has that brooding, my^ic beauty which is 
 portentous. It is not too sad — there is promise of 
 light behind the cloud— but the day is done; though 
 the hght shine, soon the night will follow. As if 
 the painter were saying to us,— ''I too, am passing 
 over the valley, there are no thundering s and 
 hghtnings, only the shadow and the mi^; behind 
 
 51 
 
the veil there is great peace in the golden light of 
 a far away shore ! " 
 
 He died at the Bridge of Allan in Scotland, in 
 1894, where he had gone for re^ and recupera? 
 tion. One may say, in full harness, as a soldier 
 loves to die, he turned from his easel to pass into 
 those Elysian fields where we may be very sure 
 hewas welcomed by the galaxy of those who have 
 worked well here on earth, a companion and an 
 equal with the highe^, and for us the legacy of 
 his work is veritable treasure, the more precious 
 as the years go by, when, freed from the ^ress 
 and ^rain of life's activities in less noble walks, 
 we come to contemplate those finer things which 
 are the works of the spirit, the imperishable gifts 
 of men of genius ! 
 
 PART FIVE 
 
 I DO NOT know that there could be a more 
 fitting method of completing a work which is 
 intended to be a record, than a final chapter of 
 phrases chosen from the sayings of this great 
 painter, which convey his trend of thought, his 
 ideas of art — however briefly they may be ex? 
 pressed, sometimes not more than an epigram — 
 and those canons which come to us now as almo^ 
 
inspired advice. With this in mind, I print these 
 words from the very Kps of the arti^. 
 
 ''The overlove of knowing is a chronic trouble 
 with arti^s, and produces in their works theap. 
 pearance of effort and labor instead of that free? 
 dom which is the life of Truth." 
 
 '' Knowledge mu^ bow to Spirit." 
 
 -The memory is the daguerreotype ^op of the 
 soul, which treasures all that God creates to cons 
 sciousness through eye and touch. W^hat we 
 painters have to learn is to keep the ^op closed in 
 the presence of Nature, to see and not think we 
 see; — when we do this our eyes are Hghted from 
 within, and the face of Nature is transformed, and 
 we teach the world to see reality in a new light. 
 Such is the mission of Art." 
 
 "•■Our intelligence is occupied with the con? 
 templation of Effedls. It should be occupied with 
 the contemplation of the Cause. In this case art 
 would cease to be mere imitation. Through the 
 representation of forms its purpose would be to 
 communicate intelligence." 
 
 "A bit of old?fashioned inspiration says, — 'Give 
 me understanding and I will keep thy law.' Un? 
 der^anding is a spiritual foothold, fixed upon and 
 ma^ering the sense." 
 
 53 
 
"The paramount difficulty with tke arti^ is to 
 tring his intelledt to submit to the fad; that there 
 is such a thing as the indefinable which hides itself 
 that we may feel after it. But God is always hid^ 
 den, and Beauty depends upon the unseen — the 
 Visible upon the invisible." 
 
 ''Let us beheve in art not as something to grat^ 
 ify curiosity or suit commercial ends, but some* 
 thing to be loved and cherished, because it is the 
 handmaid of the Spiritual life of the Age." 
 
 W^e can not be impressed by that which does 
 not touch us." 
 
 The brain in which these thoughts were cre^ 
 ated is billed, the voice which uttered them is 
 silent, — but in his art there can never be silence, 
 for it is the very voice of Genius speaking to the 
 hearts of the people. 
 
 54 
 
two HUNDRED AND FIFTY COPIES 
 OF THIS BOOK ON ITALIAN HAND? 
 MADE PAPER PRIVATELY PRINTED 
 BY FREDERIC FAIRCHILD SHERMAN 
 
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