The Home of the Heron, George Inness
During the final years of his life, George Inness and his family spent their winters in Tarpon Springs on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Although his health was failing, the artist continued to paint in Florida and produced some of his most subtle, evocative work there. The Home of the Heron was inspired by the area's wet landscape and seemingly endless sunsets. Influenced by eighteenth-century theologian Emmanuel Swedenborg's philosophy, Inness's spiritual beliefs were the guiding force behind his work. In this painting, the artist used abstraction to convey spiritual associations and to capture the otherworldliness of the marsh.
George Inness (1825-1894) was a prominent American landscape painter.
One of the most influential American artists of the nineteenth century, Inness was influenced, in turn, by the Old Masters, the Hudson River school, the Barbizon school, and, finally, the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg, whose spiritualism found vivid expression in the work of Inness's maturity.
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