The Sisters

George Inness's "The Sisters" (1882) is an oil on millboard that depicts two figures—perhaps sisters, or two women in a close relationship—in a landscape setting. The title suggests a personal or familial subject, but Inness's treatment is characteristically focused on the atmospheric and spiritual dimensions of the scene rather than on the specific identities of the figures. The two women are shown in a landscape, their figures small within the larger natural setting, united by their proximity and by the soft, enveloping light that surrounds them. The oil on millboard technique gives the painting a more intimate, sketch-like quality than Inness's larger canvases. The palette is soft and harmonious, with muted greens, blues, and earth tones. The brushwork is loose and expressive, the forms suggested rather than defined. This painting belongs to Inness's mature period, when his style had become fully Tonalist and his interest in the spiritual dimensions of landscape had deepened.

Inness's late figure-in-landscape paintings demonstrate his ability to integrate the human figure into his vision of nature as a realm of spiritual significance.

This painting of two women in a landscape captures Inness's late style at its most poetic, the soft light and dissolving forms creating a mood of gentle contemplation that unites the figures with their natural surroundings.