Born in Orange County, New York, near Newburgh on the Hudson, Inness loved the countryside. During his years of self-training, Inness followed the Hudson River School style of landscape painting, but when he reached the age of thirty, he went to Paris and encountered the work of the French Barbizon painters. His style changed from the panoramic landscapes of his youth to the “controlled atmospheres” of his mature work. A deeply religious man, Inness followed the teachings of the Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg, who theorized that objects in the material world have correspondences in a parallel realm of the spirit. In the latter part of his life, Inness spent much time at Tarpon Springs, Florida, where he maintained a winter home, Rose Villa, and a studio, which he spoke of as a “loft.”

In his late paintings, such as Orange Road, Tarpon Springs, painted a year before his death, Inness achieved the melding of natural and spiritual realms that he sought. A stand of three trees seems to limit the composition’s recession into space, enhancing the rich surface texture and the sense of hazy, vaporous atmosphere that is unique to Inness. While no human presence intrudes upon his mystical landscape, the setting is charged with the artist’s reverence for nature.

Bell, Adrienne Baxter. George Inness and the Visionary Landscape. New York: George Braziller Inc., 2007.

DeLue, Rachel Ziady. George Inness and the Science of Landscape Painting. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.