Life, art, and letters of George Inness . t instinctively when he lookedabroad at forest and farm land, mountain, river, andsky. One afternoon, said Inness, when I was com-pletely dispirited and disgusted, I gave over workand went out for a walk. In a print-shop window Inoticed an engraving after one of the old masters. Ido not remember what picture it was. I could notthen analyze that which attracted me in it, but it fas-cinated me. The print-seller showed me others, andthey repeated the same sensation in me. There wasa power of motive, a bigness of grasp, in them. Theywere nature, rendered g
Life, art, and letters of George Inness . t instinctively when he lookedabroad at forest and farm land, mountain, river, andsky. One afternoon, said Inness, when I was com-pletely dispirited and disgusted, I gave over workand went out for a walk. In a print-shop window Inoticed an engraving after one of the old masters. Ido not remember what picture it was. I could notthen analyze that which attracted me in it, but it fas-cinated me. The print-seller showed me others, andthey repeated the same sensation in me. There wasa power of motive, a bigness of grasp, in them. Theywere nature, rendered grand instead of being belittledby trifling detail and puny execution. I began totake them out with me to compare them with natureas she really appeared, and the light began to had no originals to study, but I found some of theirqualities in Cole and Durand, to which I had was a lofty striving in Cole, although he didnot technically realize that for which he was in Durand a more intimate feeling of na- 14. THE MILL ( at sixteen) BOYHOOD AM) YOITII ture. It/ thought I, these two can only be com-bined! 1 wfl] try!,M The result is well known to all lovers of Tnn Not only did he succeed in combining those qualities that impressed him in the works of the masters thathe studied assiduously, hut he added that dominantquality o\ spirituality, or bigness of vision, that wasthe key-note of his life. I cannot express it betterthan by letting him speak direct. lie said: The true use of art is, first, to cultivate the artistsown spiritual nature, and, second, to enter as a factorin general civilization. And the increase of theseeffects depends on the purity of the artists motive inthe pursuit of art. Every artist who, without refer-ence to external circumstances, aims truly to repre-sent the ideas and emotions wmich come to him wrhenhe is in the presence of nature is in process of his ownspiritual development and is a benefactor of his course
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