The Gilded Age in America

Early Autumn, Montclair, 1891
George Inness   (1825-1894)
Oil on canvas, 29 x 45 inches
Special Purchase Fund, Friends of Art, 1965
DAM 1965-1

George Inness’ late landscape paintings bear little resemblance to his earlier Hudson River School-inspired canvases. During his lifetime, Inness became a follower of the religious system called Swedenborgianism. Their beliefs center on the concept that there is a correspondence between the natural and spiritual worlds— “as above, so below.”

In the painting Early Autumn, Montclair, the landscape appears non-specific and the centered foreground trees are spot-lit even though the scene appears to be rather fuzzy. Like the Impressionists, Inness was a close observer of nature and sought to express the season, weather, and light conditions of the locale. But while Inness may have begun his paintings in nature, he completed his work in his studio relying on his memory and colored by imagination to create his luminous expressions of the spirituality of observed nature.