Studies On The Expressive Style Of George Inness Landscape Painting

George Inness(1825-1894)was a very famous American landscape painter in late nineteen century.There were obvious characteristics of expressiveness in his landscape paintings.Considering its origin,we can not only find the learning.inspiring and innovation coming from the traditional styles of Europe landscape paintings,but also the awakening and reflection on self-awareness of aesthetic judgment.The modernism of American paintings could be forecasted based on its strong formalization,self-emotional expression and exploration for the nature and religious mystery,resulting in the occurrence of a new landscape style with American national characteristics.There are richer contents as to the expressiveness in George Inness's landscape paintings that include natural beauty,arcadia beauty,composition expressiveness.color meaning and religious divinity,whose expressiveness has not been just understood by our contemporary people,but had been admitted by critics at Inness's times,all rooting in Inness's pursuit of inner expressiveness.The study fuses structural analysis,theoretical evaluation and feeling explanation in order that the expressive stylistic evolution and inner mechanism can be emphatically traced.Although this paper is based on the individual studies of Inness,it is not just confined to his individualities,but has put Inness into the consideration of whole artistic environment.Various works of different times,diverse opinions of critics and extensive theoretical explanation have been combined and referred to find individual uniqueness from artistic group universality.The innovation on paper's content and method is the main consideration by the combination of theoretical analysis and empirical study.Focusing on the evolution of ontology characteristics such as composition and styles,the authentic intention and manners on creation are ascended more attentively.The innovative methods arc embodied in three aspects,firstly,the relation between theoretical analysis and work apprecialion is reached by the use of typical formalistic and stylistic theories of artistic historians and critics like Heinrich Wolfflin,Sir.E.H.Combrich,Meyer Schapiro.Alois Riegl.Susanne K.Langer etc.finding more rational explanation on the mechanism of stylistic transformation of Inness's works.Secondly,vertical analysis and horizontal comparison on landscape works are adopted together,which have paid special attention to both the ontological expressiveness of Inness's work formalization and the contrast to European,American and Chinese landscape paintings for deeper understanding of Inness' style features.Thirdly,the autonomic stylistic evolution and heteronomous external factors are also taken into consideration all together.Some ideas like picturesque,feeling,idyllic and artistic taste have been included in order that the paper can cover cultural and social impact on Inness's work styles while emphasizes on the composition and style judgment.Judging the stylistic stages of Inness works is based on composition,artistic will and expressive factors,it is summarized that there were four periods for Inness's stylistic evolution which were arcadia style between 1851-1854,idyllic and realistic mixed style between 1853--1859,expressive scientific pattern between 1859-1874 and tonalism style with American characteristics happened about 1875.Tracing the evolution course of his style learning and dividing,three origins of Inness's expressive opinions have been refined based on motivation analysis.These origins are the influence of Europe traditional naturalism of landscape paintings,American local artistic thoughts and practice,unique expressive visual concept.Furthermore,three definite expressive ideas are suggested,including embodiment of utopianism,vision for picturesque homeland and searching for divinity.Four color characteristics of Inness's painterliness have been analyzed.As to the formative manner,the differences between lines and masses have been watched closely.Considering the natural expressiveness,painterliness and the effect of decoration have been emphasized.In regard to the visual effect,the change from clearness to vagueness has been noticed.With respect to formative properties,the transformation from static pattern to dynamic ones has been focused greatly.Then,the relation between color features and feeling expression of Inness's works has been discussed,which includes personality and coordination,blue charm,emotional sustenance for color.The dissertation focuses on inner factors such as the self-expression,morality orientation,religious belief and poetic imagination,meanwhile exploits the game relationship between sponsor mechanism and public enjoyment.It is systematically revealed how the artist defended his ideal and compromised facing the choice of money and aesthetic aims in order that the correlation between stylistic formation and external factors of landscape painting has been set up.The representation of modern expression of Inness's painting skills is discussed in three aspects.First one is the color abstract which embodies the technique to create hazy effect,middle tone and shadow arrangement.The important considerations have been placed and studied on painting skills with modernity such as jabbing.splashing,daubing and mass color arrangement.Another characteristics is composition abstract which can be observed on the staffage and omission,scientific form and skeptic composition.The last one defines the relation between formative factors as color,composition and subjective feeling like art will as well as tactile-visual sense.