Identifier: lifeletters00inne (find matches)
Title: Life, art, and letters of George Inness
Year: 1917 (1910s)
Authors: Inness, George
Subjects: Inness, George, 1825-1894
Publisher: The Centry Co.
Contributing Library: Whitney Museum of American Art, Frances Mulhall Achilles Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Metropolitan New York Library Council - METRO

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e Inness never tried to deceive. His wholeaim was to tell the truth that nature taught him. Hisgreat regret was that he was limited to paint. IfI could only paint it without paint! was his lament. He has often said that his great ambition was topaint a picture that would so disguise his technic thatone would wonder how it was done. To make a foldof a dress with one sweep of the brush or a cloud bya wipe of the thumb was no virtue in his eyes. Thedress should look real, and the cloud should float inthe atmosphere. No matter how it was done, andthe further it was removed from the suggestion ofthe brush, the greater the work of art. No; therewas none of the mountebank in Inness. Everythinghe knew in art was gained by the hardest work, theclosest and most minute study of nature. He wouldsay to me: Draw, draw, draw. Learn your artthoroughly, have it at the tips of your fingers, beable to do it with your eyes shut, so that if you haveanything to express you will be able to do it without 246
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THE ART OF GEORGE IWKSS the slightest hesitancy. Know forms, know nature,as a musician knows his notes before he attempts to render a harmony. All of my fathers work was most painstaking, andalthough at times it would seem that he was dashingmadly and wildly at a canvas, so rapid was his workand so intense his feeling, nevertheless a sure knowl-edge of the form he wished to produce could alwaysbe traced in every touch. No matter with what in-tensity he worked, and he often rushed at a canvasas though his object were to thrust his fist throughit, there would be no doubt that it was an elm-treethat he wished to represent, and not an oak. Hewould never set a pine-tree where a willow ought togrow, or place chrysanthemums in a lily pond.When he painted a skunk cabbage he knew justwhere to place it, and when he painted a rainbow itwas absolutely right, and all the atmospheric condi-tions were thoroughly carried out in a truthful andscientific manner. To be sure, it might be suggestedby just

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