The Gleaners

George Inness, artist

1825–1894

The Gleaners, 1893

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: oil; canvas

Dimensions:
Canvas/Support (Height x Width x Depth): 66 x 91.4 cm
Canvas/Support (Height x Width x Depth): 26 x 36 in

Credit line: William Bridges Thayer Memorial

Accession number: 1928.1999

Not on display

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Civic Leader and Art Collector: Sallie Casey Thayer and an Art Museum for KU

While living in Chicago from 1908 to 1911, Sallie Casey Thayer learned about the work of major American artists. Thayer likely became familiar with painters such as Winslow Homer and George Inness by attending exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, and establishing relationships with local gallerists such as J. W. Young. It was through Young that she purchased Inness’s The Gleaners, a painting that the Chicago Post advised readers to look for at Young’s Art Gallery. The Gleaners shows a type of laborer who gathered grain left after the harvest. Inness’s intense yellows evoke a sun, whose glow backlights a field, providing the day’s last moments of warmth. It was also at the behest of Young that Thayer returned to Chicago in 1912 to see a painting on consignment. Thankfully, Thayer bought it, and Winslow Homer’s Cloud Shadows is currently on view in the Spencer’s Kress Gallery upstairs.

Archive Label 2003:
Inness embraced the philosophy that God and nature were one and that there was a connection between external and spiritual beauty. His interpretation of nature changed in the 1860s, when he began to incorporate feelings in his work. In The Gleaners, painted near the end of his life, he depends on emotions to enhance the aesthetic experience for the viewer.

By the time The Gleaners was painted, Inness’s brushwork had become significantly looser than in his earlier works. The identities and actions of the figures are more difficult to define than the rich tonality of the brown-green mist in the fields and the shimmering-gold sunset glimpsed through the trees.