Autumn Meadows

George Inness

1869 · Oil on canvas · The American Wing

By the start of the Civil War, Inness's paintings began to show distinctive influences of the Barbizon school of French landscape and genre painting, so different from the Hudson River School, with its scrupulous draftsmanship and its respect for topographical truth. However, the diffuse solar light and misty translucency of this picture does not reflect the dense pigmentation of Barbizon works and suggests the artist's appreciation of the English master J. M. W. Turner, whose qualities were early detected in Inness's work by his critics though they were disparaged by Inness himself.

Artist

George Inness

Date

1869

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Gift of Walter Knight Sturges, 1974