In the Gloaming

Inscriptions

Signed and dated, lower right: G. Inness 1893

Label

Regis François Gignoux completed New Hampshire in 1864, roughly thirty years before George Inness painted In the Gloaming, which hangs in an adjoining gallery. Both landscapes suggest a reverence for nature—but what aspects of nature does each highlight? How do they differ in subject and style, and how do both works reflect their cultural and historical contexts? Below are some points of comparison.

The Gignoux’s large size and sharp contrasts between light and shadow accentuate the drama of this panoramic, vertiginous, and somewhat embellished vista, which is likely a synthetic view based on the Great Gulf in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains. Adding to its theatricality, note that we as viewers seem to be precipitously suspended mid-air above the canyon. The more broadly painted, nearly monochromatic Inness offers instead an intimate twilight view of an unremarkable meadow that was probably near the artist’s home in Montclair, New Jersey. We can barely discern three figures, a wooden structure to the left, and perhaps sheep to the right.

Gignoux’s New Hampshire is as operatic and expansive as Inness’s In the Gloaming is quiet and introspective. With its prominent eagle soaring through the canyon and seemingly endless view into the distance, New Hampshire can be viewed as a reflection of the nation’s Manifest Destiny—the then-popular belief that the United States had a God-given right to expand its borders westward and beyond.  Could Gignoux’s lifting clouds and sunlit vista have also been alluding to the Civil War, then in its final stages? With remote battle scenes being notoriously difficult and dangerous to capture on paper or canvas, perhaps even a New England landscape could serve as a poignant expression of national hopes and anxieties.

Inness’s In the Gloaming reflects his deep interest in spiritualism and a growing late 19th-century fascination with alternative religious traditions and the life of the mind. As a spiritualist, Inness believed in the continuity between material and spiritual realms. Figures and forms almost dissolve in his mysterious half-light paintings, transcending physicality to appear as vague recollections. 

From the 2019 exhibition American Art, Colonial to Modern, curated by Barbara J. MacAdam, Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art

George Inness’s In the Gloaming reflects his deep interest in spiritualism and a growing late 19th-century fascination with alternative religious traditions and the life of the mind. As a spiritualist, Inness believed in the continuity between material and spiritual realms. Figures and forms almost dissolve in his mysterious half-light paintings, transcending physicality to appear as vague recollections.

From the 2022 exhibition This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, curated by Jami C. Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art; Barbara J. MacAdam, former Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art; Thomas H. Price, former Curatorial Assistant; Morgan E. Freeman, former DAMLI Native American Art Fellow; and Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Course History

WRIT 7 , Religion and Literature: Re-visioning the Natural, Nancy Crumbine, Spring 2015

ANTH 7.05, Animals and Humans, Laura Ogden, Winter 2022

GEOG 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ARTH 5.01, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Mary Coffey and Chad Elias, Winter 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

SPAN 65.15, Wonderstruck: Archives and the Production of Knowledge in an Unequal World, Silvia Spitta and Barbara Goebel, Summer 2022

Exhibition History

A Century of American Art, 1866-1966, 100 Years of Visual Evolution [An exhibition presented in conjuction with the University's Centennial Celebration Program], Scudder Gallery and Small Gallery, Paul Creative Art Center, The University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, January 15-February 15, 1966, checklist no. 21.

American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, William B. Jaffe and Evelyn A. Jaffe Hall Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 9-December 9, 2007.

American Art, Colonial to Modern, Israel Sack Gallery and Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 26, 2019-September 12, 2021.

American Paintings, Barrows Print Room, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 7-February 1, 1974.

Carpenter Art Galleries, Dartmouith College, Hanover, New Hampshire, February 28, 1978-1982.

Carpenter Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 1962.

Director's Choice, Jaffe-Friede Gallery, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 10-July 10, 1966.

Exhibition of the Paintings Left by the Late George Inness, American Fine Arts Society, New York, New York, no. 211, December 27, 1894.

From Copley to Dove: American Drawings and Watercolors at Dartmouth, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 11-May 28, 1989 [no catalogue].

Graphic Styles of the American Eight, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, February 29-April 11, 1976.

Israel Sack gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hamphire, March 26, 1996.

Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 29, 2003-May 8, 2007.

Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 7, 2010.

Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 21, 1992-June 22, 1997.

Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 5, 2001.

Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 2-November 9, 2009.

Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 16, 1997-May 5, 2002.

Some Quietist Painters: A Trend toward Minimalism in Late Ninetheeth-Century American Painting, Hathorn Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York, 1970, no. 4.

The Protean Century, 1870-1970, A Loan Exhibition from The Dartmouth College Collection, Alumni and Friends of the College [under the auspices of the Dartmouth Arts Council], M. Knoedler & Company, Inc, New York, New York, February 10-28, 1970.

This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 5–July 22, 2022.

Works of Art on Paper from the Dartmouth College Collection, Carpenter Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, May 30-September, 1975.

Publication History

Marcel Roche, ed., Interciencia, Volume 19, Number 6, November-December 1994, Caracas: Interciencia, 1994, Cover

Jacquelynn Baas,Treasures of the Hood Museum of Art, New York: Hudson Hill Press; Trustees of Dartmouth College, 1985, p. 118-9, no. 103.

Sheldon Reich, Graphic Styles of the American Eight, Utah, 1976, p. 71, no. 82.

Barbara J. MacAdam, American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Muesum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2007, p. 63, no. 42.

The Protean Century, 1870-1970, A Loan Exhibition from The Dartmouth College Collection, Alumni and Friends of the College, Hanover, New Hampshire: The Trustees of Dartmouth College, 1970, no. 22.

LeRoy Ireland, The Works of George Inness, An Illustrated Catalogue Raisonne, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965, p. 387-388, no. 1482.

Michael Quick, George Inness, A Catalogue Raisonne, Volume Two, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2007, p. 417, no. 1123, plate 239.

Joan C. Siegfried, Some Quietist Painters: A Trend toward Minimalism in Late Ninetheeth-Century American Painting, Saratoga Springs, New York: Skidmore College, 1970, no. 4, mentioned on p. 5 in the introduction; comment p. 12 by Josey Twombly; repro. fig. 2.

Provenance

Estate of the artist (sale, Fifth Avenue Art Galleries, New York, George Inness executor's sale, no, 71), February 12, 1895; sold to Clement Stevens Houghton (1863-1949), Boston, Massachusetts at auction, 1895; with Vose Galleries, Boston, Massachusetts, 1947-1948 and returned to the owner, Clement Stevens Houghton; given to present collection (arranged through his attorney James D. Gregg, Boston, Massachusetts, Class of 1914), 1948.

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