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Find the woman with her pail beside the cow and the boy running with his dog, then look past them to the mill and its water wheel.
Inness painted this view in 1849, when the public preferred wild American scenery. He argued that farmed and settled land deserved painting too. Sunlight picks out the mill and the figures, while the great trees stay dark. The worn mill stands for settled life, and it also hints at the changes industry was bringing.
Oil on canvas · 75.9 × 107 cm · Art Institute of Chicago
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Details and source
- Museum title
- The Old Mill
- Artist
- George Inness (American, 1825–1894)
- Date
- 1849
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 75.9 × 107 cm (29 7/8 × 42 1/8 in.)
- Credit line
- The William Owen Goodman and Erna Sawyer Goodman Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Artist’s life 1825–1894
View in the AtlasGaller’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.