Some observations on the design of an Inness

image from artrenewal.org

The dark foreground makes the middle ground seem bright and gets you out into the image.
The horizon is an example of Inness setting the horizon at a mid value. I spoke about that last night.The greens in the painting are offset by the russet tones Iness used in the tree on the right.

Below is a diagram of the general movement implied in the painting.

Over and over Inness places light shapes in front of dark ones and vice versa, I have referred to this as value stacking for lack of a better name. Notice how he has done that with the limbs of the tree at the upper right and the little white tree trunk enlivening the passage of dark at three o'clock.

Notice the cool little trick Inness has used above. He has echoed the odd shape of a tree top in the clouds next to it.

Here is another cool little move, notice how Inness cuts a hole through the large mass of the trees on both sides. There is a concealed symmetry there. None of this happened in some actual view that he copied in front of him, all of this is invented in the studio.

Here is another one of those deliberately resonant shapes he throws into his paintings. The relationships of these echoing shapes are pleasing to the viewer even if they are unnoticed at a conscious level.

Here is the painting simplified in photoshop to it's big lights and darks. As I have pointed out so many times there is really one big dark. If you put your finger on the darks you will find you can trace them all the way around the painting without lifting your finger. This is value simplification.













On the right you see the image with all of the bright accents removed. You can see what they do to enliven the painting. The accents make this painting pop. They also balance he painting by arresting the eye briefly here and there and give interest to areas that would otherwise be too plain.