Home of the Heron

Years ago I worked in the Art Museum at Princeton University which owns an Inness "Home of the Heron" painting. I used to view it frequently, and could not help but notice that Inness, in this painting and the more famous one in the Art Institute of Chicago, despite the title, or maybe because of the title, obscures the heron. Well, I could not miss this heron. Since the canal has sunk so low, the herons are less skittish, and don't fly away if you stand there looking at them. They just look back, or keep going about their business. I saw a heron recently that speared a fish, tossed it up, and swallowed it in one, flowing movement. Since it was a large fish, I could see the lump move down it's thin neck.

This is a 9x12 pastel on pastelmat paper. I focused on some areas, and left others fairly sketchy.

Creek Entrance and George Inness

Anyone who has wandered down River Drive will recognize this old wall at the bridge over the creek that flows into the Delaware River. Again pastel over acrylic prepared Wallis paper.

I have been reading George Inness and the Visionary Landscape by Adrienne Baxter Bell. I knew there was something else going on in his landscapes, but I didn't realize the depth of his religious perception of landscape. Also his deliberate going-after suggestiveness in his handling of paint. Here's a wonderful quote in the book from William James, apropos of nothing directly with Inness, "We may be in the universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the meaning of it all." Actually, my guess would be that cats and dogs might have a better sense of the universe than people.