George Inness And the Visionary Landscape

The American landscape painter George Inness (1825-1894) was one of the most thoughtful and inventive artists of his generation.

George Inness and the Visionary Landscape presents both a concise overview of Inness's life and work and a focused examination of his philosophical and religious preoccupations. It shows how Inness, inspired by the ideas of the scientist-mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688- 1772), devised a new artistic vocabulary to convey his understanding of the personal visionary experience. Moreover, it reveals commonalities between Inness's prescient work and efforts by the psychologist- philosopher William James (1842-1910) to validate mystical states of mind. It explains for the first time how Inness treated landscape painting as a form of philosophical inquiry that could communicate his holistic belief in the unity of nature and spirit. Full-color and black-and-white reproductions throughout

Adrienne Baxter Bell, Ph.D., is the author of George Inness: Painting Philosophy and the editor of George Inness: Writings and Reflections on Art and Philosophy (Braziller, 2006). She served as Guest Curator for the exhibition George Inness and the Visionary Landscape (2003-04) and is an Associate Professor of Art History at Marymount Manhattan College, New York.