George Inness, Industrial Niagara

a george inness painting of niagara falls is misty and indistinct in the lower, watery, bluish white half, and smoky hazy in the cloudy, smoggy purplish mauve of the smokestack spewing sky half. at the bottom left edge a thin strip of green landscape is inhabited by two tiny white flecks, presumably canvases of indistinctly painted painters. in a thick but not overly ornate gilt frame. at the smithsonian american art museum, c. 1889.

I had to go check something at the Smithsonian American Art Museum for a thing, and on the way, I got stopped by the tiny painters in the lower left corner of George Inness’s misty, smoky 1889 painting of Niagara. It had just recently been declared a state park, and the factories, mills, and brothels along the cataract had not yet been cleared away. Pretty sure it’s an edenic paradise now, at least from some angles.