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George Inness

American Art

This picture was never completed, but the composition provides a fascinating glimpse of George Inness’s rapid working process during the initial stages of painting. The background was first tinted overall with a gray-brown midtone. This was followed by a linear charcoal underdrawing, especially visible in the tree branches. Inness’s expressive brushwork further defines the image with both wet and dry dragged paint, bold color, rubbing, and even the apparent use of the brush handle to define the ox’s foreleg. This looser, more freely brushed style signals the direction of his mature work under the inspiration of French Barbizon art, which celebrated unidealized representations of nature.
MEDIUM Oil on canvas
DATES 1881
DIMENSIONS 20 1/4 x 30 1/8 in. (51.5 x 76.5 cm) frame: 33 3/4 x 43 5/8 x 5 3/4 in. (85.7 x 110.8 x 14.6 cm)  (show scale)
SIGNATURE Signed lower right: "G. Inness 1881"
COLLECTIONS American Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 32.827
CREDIT LINE Gift of the executors of the Estate of Colonel Michael Friedsam
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION George Inness (American, 1825–1894). Homeward, 1881. Oil on canvas, 20 1/4 x 30 1/8 in. (51.5 x 76.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the executors of the Estate of Colonel Michael Friedsam, 32.827 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 32.827_SL1.jpg)
IMAGE overall, 32.827_SL1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
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