The Olives

Artist George Inness (American, 1825-1894)

Date1873

DimensionsFrame: 32 1/2 × 42 1/2 × 4 3/4 in. (82.6 × 108 × 12.1 cm)

MediumOil on canvas.

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LineGift of J. D. Robinson in memory of his wife, Mary Elizabeth Robinson

Object number

1930.3

Not on View

Label Text“I had begun to see that elaborateness in detail did not gain me meaning…. I could not sustain it everywhere and produce the sense of spaces and distances and with them that subjective mystery of nature…” — George Inness The Olives was made during George Inness’s sojourn in Italy from 1870 to 1874. Although he had begun to paint more detailed scenes to satisfy American art collectors, The Olives shows greater breadth in the handling of the paint, less detail, and an interpretation of the subject that is more evocative than descriptive. Inness developed an increasingly personal vision of landscape painting. The lush, heightened color and dramatic lighting effects contribute to the almost dreamlike atmosphere, a hallmark of Inness’s later paintings.Published ReferencesToledo Museum of Art Museum News, no. 60, June 1931, repr.

McCausland, E., George Inness, An American Landscape Painter, New York, 1946, p. 33, repr. p. 39.

Taynton, Carole A., "Idyllic Landscapes," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, new series, vol. 8, no. 2, Summer 1965, pp. 35-36, repr. p. 35.

Ireland, LeRoy, The Works of George Inness, An Illustrated Catalogue Raisonné, Austin and London, 1965, no. 630, repr.

Index of Twentieth Century Artists, vol. IV, no. 3, p. 362.

Cikovsky, Nicolai, Jr., George Inness, New York, 1971, p. 43, repr. pl. 52.

Cikovsky, N., The Life and Work of George Inness, New York and London, 1977 (Garland reprint of Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1965), p. 219, fig. 67.

Davis and Long Company, George Inness, Watercolors and Drawings, New York, 1978, in no. 17.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, American Paintings, Toledo, 1979, pp. 64-65, pl. 65.

Cikovsky, Nicolai, "Inness and Italy," in The Italian Presence in American Art 1860-1920, Rome, 1992, p. 54, pl. 33.

Quick, Michael, George Inness: A Catalogue Raisonné, New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press, 2007, no. 447, vol. I, pp. 333, 379, 413, 414-416, 458, fig. 184, p.334, pl. 92 [before p. 289] (col.).

Exhibition HistorySpringfield, MA, George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum, George Inness, An American Landscape Painter, 1946, no. 23, repr.

Toledo Museum of Art, Art Gallery of Toronto, Two Cities Collect, 1948, no. 17, repr.

New York, Macbeth, Italian Landscapes by George Inness, 1952, no. 6.

Oshkosh, WI, Paine Art Center and Arboretum, A Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings by George Inness, 1962, no. 15, repr.

Austin, University of Texas Museum, The Paintings by George Inness (1844-1894), 1965, no. 60.

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Cleveland Museum of Art; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Washington, D. C., National Gallery of Art, George Inness, 1985-1986, no. 22, p. 120, repr. (col.) p. 119.