Gossip, George Inness

Artwork Overview

George Inness, Gossip
George Inness, Gossip
George Inness
Gossip
1884
George Inness, artist
1825–1894
Gossip, 1884
Where object was made: United States
Material/technique: oil; canvas
Dimensions:
Canvas/Support (Height x Width x Depth): 51.1 x 76 cm
Canvas/Support (Height x Width x Depth): 20 1/8 x 29 15/16 in
Credit line: William Bridges Thayer Memorial
Accession number: 1928.1899
Not on display
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Archive Label: In the 1880s, late in his career, Inness became interested in the monotones of nature and began including figures as dominant elements of his compositions for the first time. Gossip (Green Landscape with Milkmaid) exemplifies both of these interests. Inness began to pull away from the romantic realism of his earlier work as he became more involved in interpreting in painting the dramatic effects of light and air and their relationship with nature. The atmospheric treatment of the landscape was due to Inness’s increasing interest in the teaching of a religious group, the Swedenborgians. Swedenborgianism gave Inness an intellectual foundation for his own mystical interpretation of outward appearance and his belief that God and Nature were one. In this extremely verdant scene, we can see Inness delighting in the spiritual beauty of the landscape. The vitality of this rural subject is enhanced in the loose rendering of the cows, the vigorous brush strokes, and the varied tones of light in the rich green palette.

Resources

Audio

Audio Tour – Bulldog Podcast
Audio Tour – Bulldog Podcast
It has been said that little moments make life big. This everyday motto helps describe exactly what Gossip by George Inness displays. George Inness, born May 1, 1825 in Newburgh, New York, is one of the most famous American landscape artists. After attending the National Academy of Design in the mid-1840s, Inness opened his first studio in New York. He possessed a style that lacked details and large size, usually of beautiful and fertile landscapes. Due to being deeply spiritual, Inness tried to display landscapes showing God and man’s hand working together as one. He believed that nature had a relationship with spirituality, therefore believed nature received influxes from God to continually exist. With the combination of his composition, precision of drawing, and the emotive use of color, all helped George Inness to become one of America’s best landscape artists. These common themes of his were not lacking in this painting, Gossip. The man and women shown are in harmony with nature, instead of intruding, and large amounts of green in this painting, along with the grove of trees seen in the background, displays the beauty of this setting in nature. The woman leaning against the tree has just come from milking her cows in the middle far left, to engage a conversation with the man who is busy at work carving a stick. The technique of Inness’s painting was very subtle and smooth, leading to an infinitesimal presence of brushstrokes or layers of paint, making Gossip look slightly like an out of focus photograph. When first seeing it, the simplicity began to turn an interest in me. This painting suddenly filled me with the optimism that little everyday things could make life extraordinary. Whether it be sitting and having a small conversation with a friend or loved one, or sitting outside and enjoying the beauty of nature, this painting gave me an epiphany of how to make life remarkable. With my reaction, George Inness completed his goal of expressing the beauty of nature. Although George Inness died without ever knowing about my personal reaction, he can know that his intention of expressing the beauty of nature and the harmony it had with God came through to me. Like it has once been said, “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” Gossip by George Inness did just that. This has been Olivia Loney with another Bulldog Podcast.