The Lackawanna Valley

George Inness painted The Lackawanna Valley in 1856 for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. It is one of the earliest American paintings commissioned by a corporation, and it shows a real place: the railroad's roundhouse at Scranton, Pennsylvania. A young man sits on a hillside in the foreground, his legs crossed, looking out over a valley. Below him, a railroad roundhouse with a dozen stalls stretches across the middle ground. Several locomotives sit in the stalls, smoke rising from their stacks. A long line of rail cars extends to the right. The valley is open, with fields, fences, and scattered trees. Stumps dot the hillside where the young man sits, showing where the forest has been cut back. The canvas is roughly 34 by 50 inches, landscape format. The sky is a pale, hazy blue, and the light is soft and even. Inness was 31 in 1856. He had been painting in New York for a decade, influenced by the Hudson River School and by the Barbizon painters he had seen on a trip to France. The Lackawanna Valley was his first major commission, and it gave him the money to return to Europe for two years. American painting of the 1850s was dominated by the Hudson River School, with its detailed, panoramic landscapes. Inness was moving away from that approach. The Lackawanna Valley is a hybrid: the foreground is painted with the precision of Thomas Cole, but the background dissolves into the soft, atmospheric handling that Inness would develop in his later career. The stumps in the foreground are an unusual detail. They acknowledge the cost of industrialization, even in a painting commissioned to celebrate it. Oil on canvas, 86 by 127 centimeters. Inness painted with a smooth, controlled surface in the foreground and a looser, more atmospheric handling in the distance. The roundhouse is rendered in careful perspective, with the stalls and locomotives drawn precisely. The sky is built in thin, layered washes of blue and white. This painting works in a study, office, or living room. The open landscape and soft palette suit a room with natural light and simple furniture. The 18x24 framed version in a red oak frame complements the earth tones. The horizontal format works well above a desk or sofa. The painting is in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, the Andrew W. Mellon Collection. This is a public domain artwork, sourced from Wikimedia Commons. We print it on archival matte paper at sizes from 8x10 to 24x36 inches, framed or unframed. The image is printed at full resolution with no cropping.