George Inness’s "The Storm" was a commission of George I. Seney, a wealthy financier who was a faithful supporter of Inness’s work (Quick, Michael. "George Inness: A Catalogue Raisonné." New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007, p. 171). Inness painted the work in 1885, the year he made Montclair, New Jersey his permanent residence, and presumably the rural areas near his home served as the inspiration for this scene. Typical of the artist in his later years, Inness eschews the bird’s eye perspective of his early work—here, the viewer is brought down to earth for a more intimate encounter with nature. The painting depicts a landscape in the midst of an approaching storm. The sky roils with dark grey clouds, parting just long enough for the sun to illuminate the withered branches of a sapling tree in the middle ground. A structure in the background has also been illuminated by the momentary burst of the sun’s rays. The brilliant emerald greens and mellow golds reveal Inness’s talents as a colorist. In the distance, a dark figure passes beneath a tree. His shadowy form lends the painting a mysterious and enigmatic quality. Is he approaching or retreating?
In 1885, Inness had not yet made the transition to the near-complete suppression of detail that would characterize the paintings of his final years. Thus, the leaves on the sapling tree are delineated quite distinctly. Overall, however, the painting has a hazy effect that seems to reference Inness’s Swedenborgian belief in the spiritual life of the physical world. The dramatic burst of sunlight reinforces the viewer’s sense of the power of nature. Michael Quick, author of the George Inness catalogue raisonné, called "The Storm," “clearly one of his most powerful and expressive works” (letter from Michael Quick to Reynolda House collections manager Ellen Kutcher, April 11, 1997).
Produced by: Aaron Canipe
About Reynolda:
Reynolda, in Winston-Salem, NC, is a 53-year-old museum at the center of Reynolda’s 170 acres. Reynolda House Museum of American Art presents a renowned art collection in a historic and incomparable setting: the original 1917 interiors of Katharine and R.J. Reynolds’s historic home. Spanning 250 years, the collection is an uncompromisingly selective one, a chronology of American art, with each artist represented by one work of major significance. The Reynolda experience includes a free app called Reynolda Revealed; touring exhibitions in the museum’s Mary and Charlie Babcock Wing; formal gardens, conservatory, and walking trails of Reynolda Gardens; and more than 25 of the estate’s original buildings repurposed as shops and restaurants in Reynolda Village.
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