George Inness and the Visionary Landscape

George Inness and the Visionary Landscape includes forty color reproductions of Inness's most important paintings and presents both a chronological overview of Inness's life and a more focused treatment of the artist's main philosophical and religious preoccupations. Central to his thinking were the writings of the Swedish scientist-turned-visionary Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), who influenced many of Inness's contemporaries, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Walt Whitman. George Inness also suggests resonances between the artist's visionary landscapes and the concurrent efforts, on the part of the psychologist-philosopher William James (1842-1910), to validate the existence of mystical states of mind. It shows Inness to have anticipated many of the most important tenets of modernism, an achievement that continues to inspire contemporary audiences.

Adrienne Baxter Bell served as Guest Curator for the exhibition George Inness and the Visionary Landscape (2003-2004).