George Inness and the Hudson River School: Polarizing the middle landscape

The American landscape painter George Inness (1825-1894) is most widely recognized for his tonal landscapes from the last two decades of his life. His earlier paintings from the 1850s and 1860s were created during the critical reign of Hudson River School painters such as Frederic E. Church and Asher B. Durand and at best Inness was viewed as a minor Hudson River painter by mid-nineteenth century critics. Although the painters shared a common interest in depicting the middle or pastoral landscape, this thesis will argue that Inness's early reputation suffered precisely because his paintings did not conform to the popular style and thematic content of Hudson River School landscapes.;The first chapter will examine the ways that both the formal structure and socio-economic content of Church's and Durand's work of the early 1850s support their programmatic themes of expansionism and the promise of technology. The second chapter will then analyze five Inness landscapes from the 1850s and early 1860s and present formal and cultural evidence for his departure from the prevailing artistic themes that Church's and Durand's paintings express.;The final chapter will explore Inness's interest in Henry George's "single tax" theory which builds upon the ideals of Jeffersonian agrarianism and will examine his efforts to incorporate the tenets of Swedenborgianism in his life and paintings. This chapter will focus on these concerns as the culmination of Inness's life-long exploration of humanity's relationship with land and labor, which first surfaced in the early landscapes discussed in this thesis, rather than in the renowned later paintings of the 1880s and 1890s.