Don’t delay or stay too long, meet us at the break of dawn.
Sunrise by George Inness could be an off putting painting. It’s a hazy picture, made of orange, green, yellow, brown, and gray blears. But, while it’s somewhat ugly, it’s intriguing. It draws you in. You can feel the place in this landscape.
With this painting, you wake to early sun burning through morning mist. There is a kind of magic when you step outside to feel golden heat and cool vapor touch your skin at the same time. This painting sounds like Grieg’s Morning Mood, and the Adagio from Brahm’s Piano Conerto No. 1 playing simultaneously (Try giving it a listen, it’s more beautiful than you might expect). How do you paint the ethereal? And then, how do you describe the painting of the ethereal?
George Inness' imagery is evanescent. You feel like you can’t quite see his pictures. They are dreamy, but they’re not frivolous. His compositions often feel as if they will fail at any moment. But, they don't. He painted tightly within the envelope of the given images, but also with freedom and expression. His pictures are often quite abstracted, but, to the gut, they never feel like anything but true to life. He disregarded painterly posturing, and instead favored his sense of honesty. They’re paintings about his expression, but they’re not paintings about him. His creations represent his awareness of collective sensations of people and their landscapes. With Sunrise Inness painted the practical, soily chlorophyll landscape. He also painted the screen of midsummer’s fairyland fog through which you see this landscape.
This dawn has summer ghosts. A figure, in silhouette, makes his way through the landscape. Is it a plowman yawning as he begins a long day’s work? Or is it a puckish hobgoblin, yawning as he slips home after a long night of mischievous wandering? This dawn is a beginning scene, and an ending scene.
In parallel, the craft of this painting has productive divergence between its component parts. What you might at first see as disunion, resolves into well crafted harmony. This painting feels as if it were spilled rather than painted onto the canvas. But, it doesn’t feel thin or watery. Most of the picture is sufficiently built up. But it’s not built of dutifully alternated glazes and scumbles. When necessary to his vision, Inness freely toyed with painterly convention. His paintings have a vibe more than they have a beauty. In this painting, the careful gradient of light in the sky - orange to yellow to red - is reminiscent of the smooth color rich skys of the Hudson River School. But, in order to create morning mist, Inness painted a drab, gray wash over the bulk of the sky. He let only the brightest light of the sun burn through to become the focal point at the center of the picture.
Blurry patches of greens roughly imply bushes, tree leaves, and banks of grass. Over these patches Inness laid gentle flutters of color to make more specific bits of foliage. For these, he simply touched the side of his brush to the surface, and let the bristles do the work. Inness’s creative mark making is compelling. In places he turned his brush around, and scribbled into the wet paint with the brush handle. For texture in the tree branches, he chicken scratched a dry scumble. But, for this scumble, instead of a local color in reference to the tree itself (i.e. the color of leaves or bark), Inness used the same warm tonal black that he used as a glaze throughout the rest of the picture. He simply varied his handling of the same paint for different effects. It’s the kind of efficient and painterly pluck you love to see in the work of a great painter.
In Sunrise, Inness adeptly handled the diverse components of his painting until they coalesced into a morning’s majesty. It's a visual epilogue that comes at the end of a midsummer’s night of dreams. So, “don’t delay or stay too long, meet us at the break of dawn.”
Sunrise by George Inness could be an off putting painting. It’s a hazy picture, made of orange, green, yellow, brown, and gray blears. But, while it’s somewhat ugly, it’s intriguing. It draws you in. You can feel the place in this landscape.
With this painting, you wake to early sun burning through morning mist. There is a kind of magic when you step outside to feel golden heat and cool vapor touch your skin at the same time. This painting sounds like Grieg’s Morning Mood, and the Adagio from Brahm’s Piano Conerto No. 1 playing simultaneously (Try giving it a listen, it’s more beautiful than you might expect). How do you paint the ethereal? And then, how do you describe the painting of the ethereal?
George Inness' imagery is evanescent. You feel like you can’t quite see his pictures. They are dreamy, but they’re not frivolous. His compositions often feel as if they will fail at any moment. But, they don't. He painted tightly within the envelope of the given images, but also with freedom and expression. His pictures are often quite abstracted, but, to the gut, they never feel like anything but true to life. He disregarded painterly posturing, and instead favored his sense of honesty. They’re paintings about his expression, but they’re not paintings about him. His creations represent his awareness of collective sensations of people and their landscapes. With Sunrise Inness painted the practical, soily chlorophyll landscape. He also painted the screen of midsummer’s fairyland fog through which you see this landscape.
This dawn has summer ghosts. A figure, in silhouette, makes his way through the landscape. Is it a plowman yawning as he begins a long day’s work? Or is it a puckish hobgoblin, yawning as he slips home after a long night of mischievous wandering? This dawn is a beginning scene, and an ending scene.
In parallel, the craft of this painting has productive divergence between its component parts. What you might at first see as disunion, resolves into well crafted harmony. This painting feels as if it were spilled rather than painted onto the canvas. But, it doesn’t feel thin or watery. Most of the picture is sufficiently built up. But it’s not built of dutifully alternated glazes and scumbles. When necessary to his vision, Inness freely toyed with painterly convention. His paintings have a vibe more than they have a beauty. In this painting, the careful gradient of light in the sky - orange to yellow to red - is reminiscent of the smooth color rich skys of the Hudson River School. But, in order to create morning mist, Inness painted a drab, gray wash over the bulk of the sky. He let only the brightest light of the sun burn through to become the focal point at the center of the picture.
Blurry patches of greens roughly imply bushes, tree leaves, and banks of grass. Over these patches Inness laid gentle flutters of color to make more specific bits of foliage. For these, he simply touched the side of his brush to the surface, and let the bristles do the work. Inness’s creative mark making is compelling. In places he turned his brush around, and scribbled into the wet paint with the brush handle. For texture in the tree branches, he chicken scratched a dry scumble. But, for this scumble, instead of a local color in reference to the tree itself (i.e. the color of leaves or bark), Inness used the same warm tonal black that he used as a glaze throughout the rest of the picture. He simply varied his handling of the same paint for different effects. It’s the kind of efficient and painterly pluck you love to see in the work of a great painter.
In Sunrise, Inness adeptly handled the diverse components of his painting until they coalesced into a morning’s majesty. It's a visual epilogue that comes at the end of a midsummer’s night of dreams. So, “don’t delay or stay too long, meet us at the break of dawn.”
