Catskill Mountains
1870
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
123.8 × 184.5 cm (48 3/4 × 72 5/8 in.)
Classification
painting
Department
Arts of the Americas
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
68388
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
George Inness’s Catskill Mountains depicts a land tamed by human presence. The church, the carefully tended fields, and the hayrick on the right are all finely delineated in a manner typical of Inness’s early style. Although the artist’s reverent handling of color and light in this image has often been linked to his interest in Swedenborgian spirituality, it also relates to his admiration for this particular expanse of the American landscape. During the mid-19th century, the Catskill Mountain ra...
About the Artist
George Inness · 1825–1894
George Inness (1825–1894) was an American landscape painter regarded as one of the most important figures in nineteenth-century American art, bridging the Hudson River School tradition and a more personal, spiritually-inflected vision of nature. Born near Newburgh, New York, he received limited formal training, studying briefly with Régis François Gignoux, but was largely self-taught, developing h...