The Mill Pond
1889
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
95.9 × 75.6 cm (37 3/4 × 29 3/4 in.)
Classification
painting
Department
Arts of the Americas
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
151108
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
A distinctive landscape painter of the 19th century, George Inness excelled at capturing the poetics and mood of his environs, finding spiritual resonances in nature, from its grand vistas to its quiet nooks. The Mill Pond depicts a sylvan setting, in which a small figure rows a boat in the pond at middle distance. Brilliant pigments of orange, green, and blue electrify an otherwise tranquil scene. Through color and atmosphere rather than line or detail, Inness communicated an intensity of visio...
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...