Indian Rock, Narragansett, Rhode Island

William Stanley Haseltine

American

Born in Philadelphia, William Stanley Haseltine traveled to Germany to study painting after graduating from Harvard in 1854. While there he met the American artists Emanuel Leutze, Worthington Whittredge, and Albert Bierstadt. Together, the group journeyed down the Rhine River to Switzerland and Rome in 1856. These experiences influenced Haseltine’s development as a landscape painter. After returning to the United States in 1858, he continued to make excursions in pursuit of landscape subjects.

Born

1835

Died

1900

Indian Rock, Narragansett, Rhode Island by William Stanley Haseltine

What would you hear, smell, and feel from this location?

During the American Civil War, Haseltine traveled repeatedly to the rocky coastline of New England to sketch the sea and shore that appear in his strongest works. In this painting, waves rise up from the blue sea, turning green as they stretch toward the sky and crash upon the orange rocks. The painting’s horizontal emphasis and bold light lend a calm timelessness to the scene, prompting one critic to praise “these noble rock portraits set in the deep blue crystalline of the sea.”

Medium

Oil on canvas

Credit

Museum purchase, Roscoe and Margaret Oakes Income Fund

Item ID

1985.28

Dimensions

22 3/8 x 38 5/8 in. (56.8 x 98.1 cm)

Date

1863

Country

United States