Looking Over the River

The maturation of Inness style has an important link to the various places in which he lived. As a landscape artist this was certainly true of substance, but in his case it was true of style. Although he began his career as a follower of the Hudson School, his travels would influence the development of his work. Two events in particular stand out. The exposure he received to the Barbizon school on one of his trips to France in the 1850s and the time he spent in Raritan Bay. From a technical, and a spiritual point of view, they changed the way in which Inness saw the natural environment that would be his subject. "The artist" he said, "reproduces nature not as the brute sees it, but as an idea partaking more or less of the creative source from which it flows." By 1886, when this painting was executed, Inness' style had reached its full maturity. He was painting in "blur and fade" and his work takes on an abstract air. The soft colors and the atmospheric haze that are hallmarks of this period of his life are profoundly evident in this lush scene. The human figure that gazes out, across the river, stresses the Swedenborgian notion of correspondence between the human world and nature, and the spiritual manifestations of both. Inness worked at an incredible pace, and by 1886 was working from memory, so the exact location is unclear. Looking Over the River poses all the poetic intensity of the later works of Inness. It celebrates his beliefs and his technical skills. It is in keeping with his philosophy that "it [art] is the hand-maid of the spiritual life of the age."