Inness in the Countryside

Discussion of a landscape painting by George Inness will introduce students to the impact of the railroad to the countryside in mid-nineteenth century America. They will depict this same scenery as they envision it in the past and in the future. Lastly, they will write an essay on how they would preserve the environment as the head of a railroad company.

We look across and down into a valley with a person sitting near a tall tree and a train puffing smoke beyond, all enclosed by a band of mountains in the distance in this horizontal landscape painting. Closest to us, several broken, jagged tree stumps are spaced across the painting’s width. A little distance away and to our left, the person wears a yellow, broad-brimmed hat, red vest, and gray pants. He reclines propped on his left elbow near a walking path beside a tall, slender tree with golden leaves. The green meadow stretching in front of him is dotted with tree stumps cut close to the ground. Beyond the meadow, puffs of white smoke trail behind a long steam locomotive that crosses a bridge spanning a tree-filled ravine, headed to our left. The ravine creates a diagonal line across the canvas, moving subtly away from us to our left. The train has climbed out of the valley, away from a cluster of brick-red buildings. The most prominent structure is a train roundhouse, a large building with a high, domed roof to the right of the tracks. Smoke rises from chimneys on long, warehouse-like buildings, and a steeple and smaller structures suggest a church and homes to our left. Hazy in the distance, a row of mountains lines the horizon, which comes about halfway up the composition. The sky above deepens from pale, shell pink over the mountains to watery, pale blue above. The artist signed the work in tiny letters in the lower left corner: “G. Inness.” — George Inness, The Lackawanna Valley, c. 1856, oil on canvas, Gift of Mrs. Huttleston Rogers, 1945.4.1

Materials

Map of the U.S.
Drawing or painting materials
Writing materials

Warm-Up Question

What do you think was the artist’s intention in this painting?

Background

George Inness received a commission from the president of the new Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad to paint The Lackawanna Valley for advertising purposes. While documenting the achievements of the railroad, Inness also created a view of Scranton, Pennsylvania. The artist took relatively few liberties with his composition, but in compliance with the wishes of his patron, he included four trains and intentionally exaggerated the prominence of the railroad’s yet-to-be-completed roundhouse, a building for housing and repairing trains.

Steam-powered trains, like the one featured here that burned wood, released smoke and soot in the air and contributed to early forms of pollution in the United States. Rail travel was so dirty that it was not uncommon for porters to brush soot off passengers at the end of the line. Around the end of the nineteenth century, the Lackawanna Railroad—which had begun to use anthracite, a hard coal that produced heat but less smoke and flame—developed a campaign to counter its sooty reputation. Ads featured passenger Phoebe Snow, dressed in white, who rode the rails and praised the line’s cleanliness with slogans such as, “Says Phoebe Snow about to go upon a trip to Buffalo: ‘My gown stays white from morn ’til night upon the Road of Anthracite.’”* Inness’ inclusion of numerous tree stumps in the foreground, although accurate, lends ambiguity to the work. Is the painting to be read as an enthusiastic affirmation of technology or as a lament for a rapidly vanishing wilderness? This was a philosophical dilemma confronting Americans in the 1850s. Expansion inevitably necessitated the widespread destruction of unspoiled nature, itself a powerful symbol of the nation’s greatness.

*Charles Musser, Before the Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1991), 263–264.

Guided Practice

On the map, find the Lackawanna Valley located in northeast Pennsylvania. Based on its geography and on the clothes of the young man shown in the painting, what climate does the area have? (Cool temperate.) What other paintings have you seen that have similar climates? Different ones?
George Inness makes it appear that the Lackawanna Valley stretches for miles. How does a landscape painter make objects in the background appear far away even though they are painted on a flat canvas? What tricks do you see here? (Buildings are very small, mountains lack detail and are covered by clouds or fog.)
The young man watches as a train snakes through the valley. As the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad grows, what resource illustrated in the painting will continue to be necessary for its expansion? (Timber.) How could the resource be used in the building of the railroad? (Railroad ties and fuel.)
Given the natural resources in the area, what types of jobs would be available to the man in the painting? What additional ones are made possible by the railroad?

Activity

Students will draw or paint two depictions of this setting. The first will be of the valley one thousand years prior to the date of this painting (1856). They should consider the following questions:

How does it look different?
Who might live here?
What does the vegetation look like?
What types of animals might you see?
What forms of technology and/or transportation are evident?

Extension

Ideally, we should balance human progress with preservation of the natural environment. Here, trees had to be cut down to make room for the railroad beds, to build the tracks, and to fuel the trains. Students will write an essay imagining they are the owner of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad. They should answer the question, how could you be a good steward of the environment as your railroad expanded? One answer might be to plant trees in other areas to replace those cut down.

National Core Arts Standards

VA:Cn11.1.6 Analyze how art reflects changing times, traditions, resources, and cultural uses.

VA:Cr1.1.6 Combine concepts collaboratively to generate innovative ideas for creating art.

VA:Re7.1.6 Identify and interpret works of art or design that reveal how people live around the world and what they value.

VA:Re7.2.6 Analyze ways that visual components and cultural associations suggested by images influence ideas, emotions, and actions.

VA:Re8.1.6 Interpret art by distinguishing between relevant and non-relevant contextual information and analyzing subject matter, characteristics of form and structure, and use of media to identify ideas and mood conveyed.