William Stanley Haseltine

William Stanley Haseltine’s sketching trip along the Amalfi coast in May 1858 was one of the final excursions of his four-year study tour of Europe. Like other American painters of his generation, he was conscious of the abundance of painted views around Rome and eager to find new and unfamiliar subjects, such as this narrow valley with a road and bridge over a small stream. Working outdoors on tan paper, Haseltine explored the patterns of sunlight and shadow over the stones, a subject to which he would return in later paintings of the rocky shores of Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Such works show the influence of John Ruskin’s art criticism, which encouraged artists to study nature firsthand and recognize the individuality of every rock and tree.