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THE MAN AND ARTIST

George Inness, Jr.: An Appreciation

LOUIS J. RICHARDS

ECENTLY three distinguished Americans passed from their earthly activities within two months of one another. They were men whose achievements counted for the worth-while things of life. One was the greatest educator of his time, and considered the foremost citizen of his day; the second, a man of unassuming spirit but possessing high business and political ideals; the third, an artist of rare merit, skill, and power.

Robert Todd Lincoln and George Inness, Jr., were in a measure the unfortunate victims of a fate often meted out to the sons of famous and illustrious sires.

Inness, Jr., was born January 5, 1854, in Paris, whither the family had gone that the father might pursue his studies in art. Up to his fifteenth Up to his fifteenth year the family lived successively in Brooklyn, and in Medfield, Massachusetts, on their return from Paris. These were plastic years in the growing lad's life, during which he received permanent impressions in his father's studio. Later the family again journeyed abroad, with a stay in Rome, Perugia, and other Italian centers of art. Paris was the next tarrying place, where George further pursued his studies under Bonnat, one of France's most celebrated

teachers of that day. At eighteen he was back in Boston in a studio of his own. Then followed days of testing and sometimes privation. Money was generally scarce, and frantically so to purveyors of art. Sales were infrequent, and the search for fame seemed at least hazardous. Again the center of the family's activities was shifted to Brooklyn and later to Montclair, New Jersey. With a studio in New York, commissions for illustrations from various publications helped to swell the meager exchequer.

It was in this critical period, his perplexities augmented by some disturbing personal experiences, that he met and married Julia Goodrich Smith, daughter of Roswell Smith, founder and president of The Century Co. To some of his friends, and later to his critics, this event spelled disaster to his career as an artist. Had he possessed less sterling qualities, been less sure of his purpose, had he based his ideals on a wholly material foundation, it might have ended disastrously. But to him the new situation presented a spiritual challenge and an opportunity. He was neither blinded by nor did he succumb to the allurements of wealth. He plunged with planned purpose into the making of a home and into

serving his community. He became interested in town affairs, organizing the police and fire departments, and was elected one of the town fathers. His art interests were in the meanwhile by no means neglected. He was one of the founders of the Salmagundi Club and later one of its presidents, and was promptly made a member of the National Academy of Design. Thus the variety of his activities helped to broaden his vision and deepen his sympathies. Five children were born to this devoted and happy man and his wife. Sorrows, disappointments, and losses came with the years, but each was a stepping-stone to higher things.

Mr. Inness was a man of remarkable versatility. Had he elected to make business his life-work his success would have been marked. One does not usually associate artists with business. They are more often placed in the category with ministers, yet each must exercise a care in the husbanding of means that is not necessary in better paid professions. I have seen him analyze a business proposal with remarkable clarity and insight, yet never did he take risks other than those incident to any legitimate busi

ness venture.

In his advice to budding artists he was most insistent on their learn ing to draw. "Draw, draw," he would say; "then forget the technique of your drawing in the clearness of the vision of your picture. The perfection of your art will consist in the concealment of your craftsmanship." He was a firm and lasting friend, once he became one, a relationship not easily entered into. I found him diffident at first,

almost cold, certainly reserved in his attitude toward a stranger. But this seeming indifference was really a mask to hide timidity, a dread of meeting strangers and making new acquaintances. He ascribed this trait to his father, who assumed an air of brusqueness that seemed rude and forbidding but back of which was a warm heart and a friendly spirit. His geniality, once this crust had been broken through, was most marked and impressive. Then it was one saw the real Inness, Jr. "Friendship became to him then the cement of the soul." He exhibited a spirit of generosity as delicate as it was sincere. Often he engaged the good offices of a friend of some struggling artist in whom he had become interested and whose pictures were not selling any too well, delegating him to purchase a painting at no small sum. His benefactions were quiet and unassuming, and many never knew the "good angel" of their visitation.

Inness had no small talent as an after-dinner speaker, especially on topics of art. A brilliant conversationalist, he gave of his wealth of anecdote, story, witticism, and personal experience with a charm and dash, accompanied by subtle and appropriate mimicry, that stamped him an artist at entertaining. Had he essayed to be an actor he undoubtedly would have been a success. He had a natural gift for writing and has left in his "Random Thoughts" a number of charming essays, sprinkled with bits of poetry, on a variety of subjects, such as "A Temperance Story," "To a White Canvas," "The Circus Dog," "My Lady Fair," "The Second Adventist";

while his description of the Grand Cañon is a classic, and his "My Song" as beautiful and sincere a tribute as man ever paid to the woman he loved.

In his "Life, Letters, and Art of George Inness" there is no evidence of any attempt at writing fulsome praise of an honored father and great artist, but a simple, straightforward portraiture of a man, his work, his struggles and achievements, his characteristics and philosophy of life, all analyzed with care, charm, and rare discernment.

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The career of George Inness, Jr., as an artist is marked by three distinct periods: the student years of preparation, the young manhood and middle age, and the maturer years in which were accomplished his greater works. These periods are distinct and significant. They were as necessary to his development as sunshine and rain are to all growing things. He early determined to become a figure and animal painter, forsaking nature in the belief that his father had preempted that field. For a time he endured the estrangement, but the lure of the landscape overcame his reluctance, and he threw himself into his work with renewed ardor and zeal. He received encouragement from his father, and all went well, until he suddenly realized the dominating influence of that master spirit and that he was in danger of becoming a mere copyist. This, because of his sincerity, he could not endure. Whatever else might happen he must do his own work and stamp it with his own genius. The change came in a strange and,

for the time, terrifying experience. His father had been dead about a year when the event happened. Coming from his house one day, by some strange psychic phenomenon he became conscious of the presence of his father, whom he seemed to see on the opposite side of the street. In a moment he had crossed, joined the wraith-like figure, and engaged him in earnest conversation. An instant later he found himself alone and quickly gained his composure, but the experience had made a profound impression on his mind. Even to one of his temperament, sensitive and finely tuned to psychic influences, the manifestation was unusual. Returning home at once, he related his experience to his wife, whose sympathy and understanding came to his aid. As a result he determined to destroy all the canvases he had on hand, some one hundred in number. To his friends and neighbors this seemed a stark and staring tragedy; to him it was the hour of liberation.

Henceforth he placed his father's art, with all its poetic grandeur, in a sacred niche of his memory, quickly cast the die of separation, crossed over to his own field of activity, and determined to blaze his own path, solitary and alone. Hurriedly the family sailed for Europe, where in a fresh environment he took up his work with renewed enthusiasm. Here he painted "The Crucifixion," "The Entombment," and many other canvases, received Honorable Mention and the gold medal of the Paris Salon, and later was elected officier by the Académie des Beaux Arts. After an absence of five years he returned home and

became highly productive, exhibiting many pictures in New York and other art centers of America. About this time he began to spend the winter months in Tarpon Springs, Florida, and it was there he became interested in painting pictures suitable for church decoration, pictures in which it has been said he struck a new note in religious art. There have been periods when religionists have ignored the aid and inspiration of art, and other periods when painters have ignored the opportunity presented by religion for the expression of their art. It remained for George Inness, Jr., to give to our day a new expression in religious art. He broke entirely with medievalism and its massive figures of apostles and saints; for he found the prophet and poet preceding him—the divine message in the beauty and glory of nature. "For beauty and glory on earth is not self-made but sent thither by the hand and will of God." What the psalmist voiced, "the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handywork," Inness visualizes by the subtle suggestion of form, color, and light.

God. To him God was light, and the light was the light of men. He was in perfect tune with that mystic of another day who, when the world about him was crumbling and tottering to destruction, exclaimed in the poise of his spirit and serenity of his soul, "This then is the message which we have heard from him, and announce unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." That he might more definitely and clearly present this message of his art, as an interpreter of the religious spirit, he hung eight large canvases in the Church of the Good Shepherd in Tarpon Springs. He broke Springs. The first three, placed there there seven years ago, he named "Promise," "Realization," and "Fulfilment." Verses were later attached as captions. The first painting has two dominant and suggestive symbols, the rainbow and a springtime landscape, and, underneath, the words, "And this is the token of the covenant which I have made between me and all flesh that dwells upon the face of the earth." In the second a shaft of light descends from behind a cloud upon a moorland path in which may be seen a shadowy figure walking in the radiance: "And the path of the just is as a shining light which shineth more and more unto the perfect day." In the third a recently harvested field, the soft and tranquil moonlight, two receding figures wending their peaceful way toward a house with a lighted window, suggesting peace, sufficiency, and fulfilment: "And the earth shall yield her fruits and ye shall eat your fill and dwell in safety."

He saw the divine relationship between nature and nature's God, between man and nature, and between man and God. In it he realized that "beauty becomes the pledge of the possible conformity between the soul and nature and consequently a ground of faith in the supremacy of the good." He also saw with the vision of the mystic and the insight of the prophet that the universe spells good in its motive, purpose, and destiny for man. He saw this in light as the symbol of

Three years later Inness painted

a triptych, three sentiments from the Twenty-third Psalm, which has become in his hands a picture of our modern need, the spiritual leading of the Light. In this canvas a great central light emanates from a vibrant sky while three luminous shafts spread out over shepherd and sheep and the upgazing figure beside the still waters. His ability to create an emotion, spur the imagination, and suggest the presence of a light that is spiritual and supreme is nowhere shown to better advantage than in this triptych. "The Only Hope," of which much has been said, is the most mystical and symbolical picture he has painted. Its symbolism, however, is not remote but timely, and has definitely to do with a present and pertinent problem-peace and war. To George Inness war is an effect, a result of wrong thinking; envy, hate, greed, and lust for power-these cause wars. Peace is also an effect, a result of a different kind of thinking; friendship, good-will, coöperation-these make for peace. In this painting a city or civilization may be seen in ruins, deserted and desolate. Its deep perspective suggests the wars of history, while over the dark forbidding scene a brilliant and blazing sun has risen, its rays radiating in every direction, driving the mists before them, lighting the dark and forbidding clouds until they become the billowy curtains of heaven spreading out over the crumbling and tumbling ruins of the city, the radiant sun sending its beams into every nook and crevice, tinging the edges of the ruined walls with the light of renewed hope, and going far out beyond the

city's confines to search for the lost forlorn victims of hate and war. The Only Hope is disclosed in the appealing figure, vague and shadowy, discerned in the center of the sun, suggesting the message of goodwill and brotherhood as the only way of peace.

The eighth and last painting is one of great beauty and charm, different and distinct from all the others. One beholds a wooded scene whose trees stand out in stereoscopic clearness, with a perspective going far into the distance and promising fairer fields beyond. Then the light, diffusing through all, suggests, "The Lord is in His holy temple." He completed his work as he had wished, to express the vision he beheld and the hope he cherished. Inness appealed through suggestion to the imagination. "To imagine is to be an artist; to imagine well is to be a good artist. There is no mind that exists without imagining. To be an artist is to create for one's self a world of imaginary objects whose function is to express to one's self one's own mind." Some one has said that every problem in life is a theological problem. Perhaps it would be truer to say that all problems are religious. International relations, politics, government, business, education, and art are fundamentally religious. If religion is life and the life of religion is to do good, then these departments of man's activities and relationships are problems of religion. This is why George Inness, Jr., said over and over that in the last analysis art is not for art's sake any more than science is for science's sake, or business for business. Art

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